What the Hell Happened at OpenAI with Karen Hao

Factually! with Adam Conover

Headgum

Comedy

4.4 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2024

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was ousted and then reinstated in a matter of days. No explanation has been made public, which is unsettling considering just how quickly OpenAI, ChatGPT, and DALL·E have become household names. What's actually happening behind closed doors at OpenAI? Adam is joined by tech journalist Karen Hao to discuss the history of this massively influential company, how they've struggled with the identity of being a non-profit, and how the future of AI is ultimately at the mercy of the capitalist forces that drive it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a headgum podcast. I don't know what to think I don't know what to say
0:16.0	and that's all right that's okay
0:21.0	I don't know anything.
0:25.0	Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show again.
0:30.0	You know, there's been huge news in the world of AI recently.
0:33.6	Well, we don't yet know whether AI will result in a singularity utopia or a
0:38.1	Terminator style annihilation or just, you know, a lot of really annoying AI-powered customer service calls,
0:44.0	we can now be confident in one result of the AI revolution, corporate drama.
0:49.0	Open AI, the non-profit but not really company behind Dolly and chat geepte
0:55.0	recently kicked out its star CEO Sam Altman.
0:58.4	But then all the big money guys started complaining and protesting and
1:02.2	all the employees threatened to leave the company and soon
1:05.4	Altman was reinstalled back into power. What the hell happened? Why did all this drama occur?
1:12.1	And how much does all of this really matter?
1:15.3	Well, I think the most useful part for me
1:17.3	about all this drama is that it reminds me
1:19.9	that we need to break away from the heated marketing rhetoric about the allegedly god-like
1:24.7	powers of AI and focus on the actual people and corporations that are making this supposed
1:30.8	revolution happen.
1:31.8	First, it's important to remember that Sam Altman is just some tech executive.
1:36.0	He's not an AI scientist, he's not a guru or an oracle, he's a CEO, he's an investor, he's a regular fucking businessman, and open AI is not some
1:47.4	beneficent enterprise operating for the betterment of humanity.
	...

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