Elon Musk, Sam Altman illustrate a Silicon Valley truth: icons are fallible - The Washi... - 0 views
-
The mutiny inside OpenAI over the firing and un-firing of chief executive Sam Altman, and the implosion of X under owner Elon Musk, are not just Silicon Valley soap operas. They’re reminders: A select few make the decisions inside these society-shaping platforms, and money drives it all.
-
The two companies built devoted followings by promising to build populist technology for a changing world: X, formerly known as Twitter, with its global village of conversations, and OpenAI, the research lab behind ChatGPT, with its super-intelligent companions for human thought.
-
But under Musk and Altman, the firms largely consolidated power within a small cadre of fellow believers and loyalists who deliberate in secrecy and answer to no one.
- ...12 more annotations...
-
“These are technologies that are supposed to be so democratized and universal, but they’re so heavily influenced by one person,”
-
“Everything they do is [framed as] a step toward much larger greatness and the transformation of society. But these are just cults of personality. They sell a product.”
-
during
-
“These are private-sector people making money off something that serves a public function. And when they take a turn because of very personal, very individual decisions, where a handful of people are shaping the trajectory of these companies, maybe even the existence of these companies, that’s something new we all have to deal with.”
-
Jeff Hauser, the head of the left-leaning advocacy group Revolving Door Project, said in a statement Wednesday that Summers’s role on the board was a sign OpenAI was “unserious” about its oversight, and that it “should accelerate concerns that AI will be bad for all but the richest and most opportunistic amongst us.”
-
The corporate storytelling that pushes technology as a force for public harmony has proved to be one of Silicon Valley’s great marketing tools, said Margaret O’Mara, a professor at the University of Washington who studies the history of technology. But it’s also obscured the dangers of centralizing power and subjecting it to leaders’ personal whim
-
“Silicon Valley has for years adopted this messaging and mood that it’s all about radical transparency and openness — remember Google’s ‘Don’t be evil’ motto? — and this idea of a kinder, gentle capitalism that’s going to change the world for the better,” she said.
-
“Then you have these moments of reckoning and remember: It’s capitalism. Some tech billionaires lost, and some other ones are winning,”
-
where the other firms sold phones and search engines, Musk and Altman championed their work as a public mission for protecting mankind, with a for-profit business attached. It is notable that as private companies, they don’t have to report to federal regulators or to shareholders, who can vote down proposals or push back against their work.
-
Ro Khanna, who represents parts of Silicon Valley, said in an interview that the OpenAI turmoil underscores concerns that “a few people, no matter how talented, no matter how knowledgeable, can’t be making the rules for a society on a technology that is going to have such profound consequences.”
-
“We’ve seen a parade of these big tech leaders come to D.C.,” Khanna said. “I think highly of them, but they’re not the ones who should be leading the conversation on the regulatory framework, what safeguards we need.”
-
Musk on Tuesday posted a message, under a picture of him holding a katana, saying, “There is a large graveyard filled with my enemies. I do not wish to add to it, but will if given no choice.”