Sam Altman, AI and the future tech bros want

0:00Ronan Farrow:Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from the Mehrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And of course, is business broken?

0:16Ina Fried:Listen wherever you get your podcasts. WBUR Podcasts. Boston.

0:25Douglas Rushkoff:We are in a situation post-Citizens United where there is just no political willpower to create oversight for these companies. This is a situation that does require oversight, not just of Sam Altman, but of all of the leaders of this tech.

0:39Ronan Farrow:Talk about the intrigue at open AI all you want, and there is plenty of it. But concerns about artificial intelligence are bigger than one company, or one CEO.

0:59Ronan Farrow:It's Tuesday, April 14th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBR. I'm Chris Bentley.

1:09Ronan Farrow:Today on the show, a glimpse into the lives of our tech overlords, or how AI, crypto, and the aegis of unfathomable wealth can make anything seem possible. In a few minutes, we'll hear about the billionaire version of turn on, tune in, drop out, setting up your own anarcho-capitalist utopia, free of pesky things like taxes. Of course you want a private enclave, a private place with its own rules, so that you can really enact the survival of the fittest, or in this case, the survival of the riches. Also, Anthropik's newest AI model comes with a dire warning about cybersecurity, but there is marketing value in saying your product is so powerful it could end the world.

2:01Ronan Farrow:That's coming up in a few minutes. But first, Ronan Farrow on his recent story in The New Yorker, written with Andrew Marantz, about Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT. Reportedly, OpenAI is preparing for an initial public offering that could value the company at more than a trillion dollars. And according to the New Yorker investigation, insiders are concerned about Altman's leadership. I'll let Robin Young take it from here.

2:32Ina Fried:Now you may have heard a suspect has been arrested after an attempt to firebomb Sam Altman's home. Sam Altman said the New Yorker article was incendiary. The New Yorker has responded with a statement saying, in part, The New Yorker's investigation into open AI and Sam Altman was meticulously reported and fact-checked. The resulting story is fair and responsible. The writers did speak with Altman more than a dozen times, interviewed more than 100 people over 18 months. And so let's bring in Ronan Farrow. Ronan, first, do you want to add anything to the magazine statement?

3:05Douglas Rushkoff:Well, I think that is the crux of it. You know, when you have a sober, very, in fact, generous to the subject in terms of, you know, our openness to deep conversation, our sincere listening to and inclusion of any responses, all the hallmarks of the kind of critical journalism that one wants about a moment of national anxiety about a technology and an industry this important. When you have that in play, that really is the core of what we should be focusing on, the underlying conditions in this industry. And it's worth noting, OpenAI has relied on this reporting in their own letters to the attorneys general of California and Delaware.

3:48Douglas Rushkoff:So the dispute here is not factual. And we know the case that you talked about where this was attempted vandalism or threat was someone who had prior posts evincing this ideology. And I think that just opens up the bigger conversation. We are in a moment where a lot of people are and were prior to this article concerned about a crisis of legitimacy in AI leadership and the risks that Sam Altman, among others in the industry, has been very emphatic about emphasizing.

4:17Ina Fried:OK, well, let's get to this, because your piece is titled Sam Altman May Control Our Future, But Can He Be Trusted? And it starts with the lead up to Altman's high profile firing from OpenAI back in 2023. Now, one of your cast of characters is OpenAI's chief scientist. This is Ilya Satskever. He and others worried that Sam Altman was not the guy to have his finger on the button, is the quote, of this new technology they were launching. What was their sense of what they were about to launch and why were they concerned about Altman?

4:46Douglas Rushkoff:Well, it's important to understand the kind of creation myth of OpenAI. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit. And the entire pitch revolved around this technology being, as Altman put it when he was enlisting Elon Musk and Elon Musk's funds, a technology that could be as powerful and as dangerous as nuclear weapons. You know, the founders of this tech did not have the resources of, say, Google, which was several steps ahead. But in internal emails that we report on, they talk about having the upper hand in terms of having a noble, high-minded mission. And they were convinced of a range of risks, right?

5:29Douglas Rushkoff:Everything from the kind of more dangerous than nuke scenario I just mentioned, the Terminator, Skynet, classic science fiction scenarios of an AI falling out of alignment with human interests. and triggering catastrophic devastation of the human species to more immediate ones, risk to the economy, risk to jobs.

5:49Ina Fried:Yeah. And I just want to jump in. Sorry, Ronan, because you give an example that I think should be made into a billboard of some sort. One of the concerns that these research scientists had who came and joined Sam Altman and Elon Musk, specifically because, as you said, they had formed OpenAI to make sure AI was safe. And one of the researchers said, you know, There's concerns that, for instance, if you program AI to, let's say, you tell it you must stop climate change by getting rid of the biggest polluter, well, the biggest polluter is the human race. And the fear was it would get rid of the human race.

6:26Ina Fried:This was the kind of thing that kept them up at night.

6:28Douglas Rushkoff:Yes, and I just want to note the range of perspectives on this, right? Right. You do, in fact, have credible scientists in this field who believe that is a real risk as the technology accelerates. But you don't even have to go that far to see the material risks on display in the present day. Right. This technology is already integral to how we conduct warfare. We have already seen at least one apparent documented case of a drone firing without a human operator. It is incredibly good at identifying chemical weapons, new agents that can be used in a hostile way. It is facilitating a whole new set of vulnerabilities in terms of cybersecurity and hacking.

7:12Douglas Rushkoff:It's being used for political disinformation. There are many wrongful death suits now directed at OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT has catalyzed suicides and a murder. So you don't have to look off into the future for many of these risks. And OpenAI was founded around a pitch that really centered those risks. And we document how it was transformed into a for-profit from very early on in a period, even when the founders were still recruiting people on the basis of the nonprofit pitch. They were talking about how do we get out of this? How do we get into a growth posture? And we talk about cases where from there, safety leaders at the company were sounding alarms, in some cases complaining to the board, saying, as one put it, OpenAI is going off the rails on its mission.

7:57Ina Fried:Yeah. Well, look, it becomes very Shakespearean at a certain point. He does get fired. He does come back. There were other companies as well. But suffice it to say, the concern, as you document it, continued throughout all of that. But also, not just the concern about brushing aside safety requirements, but the lying. You know, it's one thing you were told that he said he was a ping pong champion and he wasn't a ping pong champion. That's one thing. But where else was this pattern? Can you give us examples?

8:29Douglas Rushkoff:Well, it's important to note how these two concerns converge, right? There are people in this piece who say Sam Altman is deceptive in a serial way to an extent that's untenable or dysfunctional for any executive of a major company, right? That It just creates too much dysfunction that there are these cases of him allegedly, you know, telling two people they've both been given the same job, things like this. But then you also have people who say in light of this particular context, in light of the safety concerns, having someone who allegedly conceals things, dissembles, tells people conflicting things, it becomes actively dangerous.

9:12Douglas Rushkoff:And this is why several years ago, board members and executives at OpenAI actually fired Sam Altman. And this includes cases that they referenced and that were in memos that we obtained in full for the first time, where Altman allegedly made inaccurate statements to board members about which features of a new model had been tested, where he misrepresented what safety testing was required for a model. Things that some of these board members, some of these colleagues felt really elevated the danger of the technology.

9:44Ina Fried:I guess, Ronan Farrow, we only have a couple of minutes here, but what was your sense coming away from this? Is the horse out of the barn? You know, is there any sense? This is such a huge company at this point, such a powerful man, very active with the current Trump administration, building huge data centers in foreign countries, working with the military when Anthropic wouldn't. What is your sense that anything you wrote or anything people are concerned about is going to matter?

10:16Douglas Rushkoff:Well, let me answer in a micro and a macro way. in miniature within this company, which is incredibly important, right? It is engaging in vast dealmaking. It has one of the fastest cash burns in startup history. It is not much of an overstatement to say that OpenAI has a significant effect on the American and global economy writ large right now. So we have to look at the integrity and the governance within this company closely, because there are economists warning of the risks of an economic bubble. if the situation we have now where a small number of highly leveraged AI companies, if that turns into a situation where there's a cratering, we all have to be worried.

10:57Douglas Rushkoff:And I think the important point is actually larger, not about open AI, but about the wider lack of a regulatory infrastructure around it. We are in a situation post Citizens United where there is just no political willpower to create oversight for these companies. And I think every American now understands that we're right to listen to the warnings of peril from some of the leaders and that this is a situation that does require oversight, not just of Sam Altman, but of all of the leaders of this tech. And we just don't have the willpower in Washington right now. We don't have that infrastructure.

11:31Ina Fried:We have to leave it at that. It is an in-depth article. We'll point listeners to it. But again, Ronan Farrow, along with Andrew Morantz and their piece in The New Yorker, Sam Altman may control our future. Can he be trusted? Ronan Farrow, thank you.

11:46Douglas Rushkoff:Thank you.

11:52Ronan Farrow:Well, as they were saying, some have inflated the promise of AI to bring about some techno utopia in the future. Best of luck with that. There are some people in the tech world, however, trying to build their own utopias today. But not just anyone is allowed in. Coming up next, Robin explores the world of sovereign enclaves and the escape fantasies of the world's uber-rich. Stick around.

12:40Ronan Farrow:On the show, host Kurt Nickish asks the thorny questions necessary for this moment about the role business plays in society. Questions like, why are executives paid so much? Why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And of course, is business broken? Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts.

13:06Ronan Farrow:Dean Russell here. I've always been curious about our world. When I was a kid, science and stories were kind of my thing.

13:14Douglas Rushkoff:And today, as a journalist and podcast producer, I still count on both those things for answers and for inspiration. That's why I'm proud to share our new series with you,

13:25Ronan Farrow:The Midnight Rebellion. It's a story about climate change and choice. I would have loved it as a kid. Find us this Earth Day wherever you get your podcasts.

13:36Ina Fried:The tiny Caribbean Federation of Nevis St. Kitts is two sovereign islands, and now a Bitcoin billionaire is hoping to create a third entity within Nevis, a semi-autonomous community that like-minded crypto-libertarians from around the world will buy into. It's called Destiny. Here's Belgian investor Olivier Janssens in a video, making his pitch to Nevisians for his paradise, where his residents would pay no taxes, conduct all business in cryptocurrency, and rely on their own laws and regulations. And Nevis could be the first Caribbean nation to host such a thing.

14:09Douglas Rushkoff:I believe Nevis can seize that role. The first country in the Caribbean to create a modern zone of this kind will not only uplift its people, but could become one of the wealthiest and most desirable regions in the world.

14:24Ina Fried:Janssen's is also offering millions in revenue sharing to the local government, scholarships for residents, jobs. Some Novitians are behind the plan. Others are not. Once under a colonial yoke, the idea of an enclave of wealthy outsiders isn't sitting well. Right now, the plan is tied up in local legal complications. But destiny is far from the first plan for a sovereign playground or the first from Janssen's. In 2017, he partnered with Roger Ver, also known as the Bitcoin Jesus, for his zeal. Veer calls himself a voluntarist and in 2017 unveiled his plan for free society, the world's first libertarian country.

15:02Ina Fried:Here he is in a video.

15:03Ronan Farrow:The law and the Constitution are going to be part of the actual land deed for this. So think of it kind of like a private home ownership association. You lay out the ground rules from day one and that's the playing rules. And it's going to be, again, based on the ideas of voluntarism and the non-aggression principle.

15:19Ina Fried:Well, that plan went nowhere. In 2024, Veer was arrested on charges of tax evasion and paid a fine. Of course, the problem with this plan is you have to get another country to give up part of their country for you to be a new country. Unless, of course, you float your country. You might remember we spoke in 2024 with author Richard Powers about his terrific novel, Playground, in which a tech pro does just that. Asks an island nation to hold a referendum on helping him launch floating, self-governing nations out to sea.

15:49Ronan Farrow:That plot, to have those people facing another referendum as to whether or not to be the base for this seasteading enterprise, was derived from a letter of agreement that a consortium of American entrepreneurs had signed with the government of French Polynesia. It was so resonant to me that I thought, ah, somebody has to pursue this as a dramatic confrontation.

16:13Ina Fried:Well, that real letter of agreement was with billionaire Peter Thiel's Seasteading Institute. That deal lapsed in 2018. But here's part of Thiel's speech about real floating autonomous countries.

16:26Ronan Farrow:The question of whether seasteading is desirable or possible, in my mind, is not even relevant. It is absolutely necessary. And so I let other people figure out how to do it. But from my point of view, it is simply unnecessary that it be done. What is going on here?

16:42Ina Fried:author and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff wrote a book to try to answer that question, Survival of the Richest, Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. And Professor, start with you are invited to speak to a group of the world's wealthiest people. You thought it was about the future of technology. Instead, they wanted to know how to escape what they called the event, you know, some world catastrophe like a malicious computer virus from work they had created or social unrest?