Sam Altman Won in Court Against Elon Musk. But, Really, We All Lost
If Musk vs. Altman had been a simple case of wounded vanity, it might have seemed like an entertaining farce. It was more of a parody. The underlying questions – how AI should be governed, by whom and how – are of great importance. But in this trial, opposing Tweedledum was really tantamount to attacking Tweedledee. It was a no-win situation.
The butt pillow might have started out as a symbol of the frivolity of the trial, but it soon became clear that it was also a powerful metaphor for the collective failures that brought us here. It was difficult, sitting on the unyielding benches, not to feel personally involved. These were the leaders who had been assigned one way or another to our society. Mike Isaac, a veteran tech journalist for the Timeswasn’t ashamed to admit that Brockman inspired him to get his own butt pillow. Isaac, a magnanimous man who resembles the actor Wilford Brimley billed as a member of the hardcore band Minor Threat, offered to share the cushion, but I thought it more appropriate to sit on the docks as a penitent. The courtroom quickly filled in anticipation of Sam Altman, who was scheduled to take the stand that day under oath. The OpenAI CEO has long been known for his boyish side, but recent years have coarsened his features and frosted his spiky hair with gray tips. He looked like a lesser ‘N Sync singer on a reunion tour. His presence in the courtroom had the sad air of someone who no longer qualified as precocious.
The fundamental question of the case, which is also the fundamental question of Altman’s career, is whether OpenAI’s transformation from a security-minded nonprofit into a voracious giant corporation was cynical in its intent or merely in its outcome. Recently, my New Yorkers His colleague Andrew Marantz appeared on a podcast to discuss alternative ways of modeling one’s behavior: the “always-a-blueprint 3D chess view” and the “improvising checkers all the way through view.” There was an element of trolling in Altman’s decision to hire attorney William Savitt, who had previously forced Musk to follow through on his push to buy Twitter, as lead counsel. Over hours of direct questioning, Savitt elicited from his furrowed client a defense narrative combining the most flattering elements of each version of the story. The part of the project that involved the creation of what he called “one of the largest charitable organizations in the world”—the nonprofit parent company, by virtue of its equity stake in the for-profit subsidiary, has assets valued at more than two hundred billion dollars—was the result of what Altman repeatedly called “hard work” or “incredible work.” But the part of the project that involved the creation of one of the world’s largest and most powerful for-profit companies was improvised – the result of “openness to creative structures.” Altman said: “It seems a bit silly to say now, but at the time we almost didn’t start this effort because we thought Google was so far ahead that it would be hopeless to compete.” »
The decision to create a for-profit entity was a matter of facts on the ground: the future of humanity demanded that OpenAI prevail in an existential battle against Google; this battle could not be fought without access to enormous reserves of capital; it was impossible to woo investors without a promise of return. On these three points, everyone involved agreed: A small, donor-funded charity would take an abacus in a data center battle. It was only recognized in passing that the introduction of a fiduciary motive could create perverse incentives, and even then the concerns were mainly about optics. As one of Musk’s advisors wrote in an email: “I’m a big fan of capitalism and make tons of money doing great things, but I’m not sure that correlates with the ‘noble cause of humanity, don’t do it to make money’ narrative.” What separated Musk and his lieutenants, on the one hand, from Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, on the other, was the unresolved question of which special man should wear the pants. In September 2017, Musk emailed Sutskever and Brockman to describe a scenario in which he “would unequivocally have initial control of the company.” He insisted he had no interest in retaining unilateral power over the fate of the species. At some unspecified time, he continued, the authority entrusted to him would be transferred to an enlarged board of directors: “The rough goal would be to arrive at a board of directors of 12 people (probably more like 16 if this board actually ends up deciding the fate of the world). »
