The chaos inside OpenAI – Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and existential risk explained | Karen Hao

You know ChatGPT, but how much do you know about the company that made it? Journalist Karen Hao joins us to talk OpenAI’s latest implosion.

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Journalist Karen Hao joins Big Think’s Editor-in-Chief, Robert Chapman-Smith, to discuss the recent events at OpenAI, including the ousting and reinstatement of CEO Sam Altman, as well as the ideological clashes regarding the development and release of powerful AI models like ChatGPT.

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Background Context on OpenAI:
The inside story of Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI, Charles Duhigg for The New Yorker ► https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/11/the-inside-story-of-microsofts-partnership-with-openai
Inside OpenAI’s chaos, Karen Hao and Charlie Warzel for The Atlantic ► https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt-chaos/676050/
OpenAI profile, Ross Andersen for The Atlantic ► https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/sam-altman-openai-chatgpt-gpt-4/674764/
OpenAI profile, Karen Hao for MIT Technology Review ► https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai-moonshot-elon-musk-sam-altman-greg-brockman-messy-secretive-reality/

Background Context on how AI works:
How Large Language Models Work, Andrej Karpathy ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjkBMFhNj_g
What is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does It Work?, Stephen Wolfram ► https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/
Are Conscious Machines Possible?, Michael Wooldridge for Big Think ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf6zZfLat-8
There is no AI, Jaron Lanier ► https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/there-is-no-ai

Background Context on accelerating AI:
Why AI will save the world, Marc Andreessen ► https://a16z.com/ai-will-save-the-world/
My Techno-Optimism, Vitalik Buterin ► https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/11/27/techno_optimism.html
Are AI Risks Overhyped?, Andrew Ng ► https://www.deeplearning.ai/the-batch/issue-220/
To fear AI is to fear Newton and Einstein, Rohit Krishnan for Freethink ► https://www.freethink.com/robots-ai/dreams-of-utopia

Background Context on AI risk:
AI risk does not equal AGI risk, Gary Marcus ► https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/ai-risk-agi-risk
AI pioneer calls to stop AI before it's too late, Stuart Russell for Freethink ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOyljx7Pi7A
Why the Godfather of AI fears what he's built, Joshua Rothman, forThe New Yorker ► https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/geoffrey-hinton-profile-ai
On the dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?, Emily Bender, Timnit Gebru, et al ► https://youtu.be/N5c2X8vhfBE?si=xS3B5NCk5np-ghDD

Books on AI:
AI 2024: Ten Visions for Our Future, Kai-Fu Lee ► https://a.co/d/61BHsfW
The Worlds I See, Dr. Fei-Fei Li ► https://www.momentoflift.com/the-worlds-i-see
The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman ► https://bigthink.com/the-future/technology-unintended-consequences-containment/
Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil ► https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241363/weapons-of-math-destruction-by-cathy-oneil/

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About Karen Hao:
Karen Hao is an award-winning journalist covering artificial intelligence, currently contributing to The Atlantic. Previously, she was a foreign correspondent at The Wall Street Journal focused on AI, China tech & society, and a senior editor at MIT Technology Review, where she wrote about the latest AI research & its social impacts. She was also a fellow with the Harvard Technology and Public Purpose program, the MIT Knight Science Journalism program, and the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability network.