WEBVTT - OpenAI vs. Sam Altman 0:00:01.520 --> 0:00:05.000 Welcome to crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:08.560 social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:14.800 Tim O'Brien. Today's crash course open Ai versus Sam Altman. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.600 Open Ai, which you may have heard a lot about lately, 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.080 is the company that developed chat Gpt, a wildly popular 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.960 AI bot which you most certainly have heard of. Open 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.000 AI's board of directors recently purged to the company's CEO, 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:36.280 Sam Altman. High drama ensued, and various stakeholders, employees, investors. 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.880 Microsoft saw to it that Altman was reinstated. The board 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:45.879 itself then faced a purge. Oh my, this particular collision 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:50.800 has it all Silicon Valley innovation in Silicon Valley hubris, money, 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:57.160 managerial snafoos, ugly battles, promising outcomes, and of course, artificial 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.000 intelligence AI is set to transform the world. We're told 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:06.000 ingenuity and upheaval and open ai offer a way for 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.199 us to consider all of that. So I've invited parme 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.000 Olsen and Dave Lee onto crash Course to help us 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.600 outline the lessons of this particular tale. They are both 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.679 Bloomberg Opinion technology columnists. Parmey It's based in London and 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:21.920 Davi is in New York and they bring a wealth 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:26.280 of experience and insight to today's show. Welcome my friends, 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.800 Thanks him, thank you. Let's start with Sam Altman himself. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:35.160 Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO, recently compared Altman to Steve 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.880 Jobs and said Open Eyes Board was wrong to can 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.880 him and I quote Schmidt here, these founder CEO types 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.800 are unusual, they're incredibly valuable, and they change the world. 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.880 Schmidt said that at a recent Axios conference. Dave, what 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.200 do you think of that observation about founder CEOs and 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.320 the sort of idea that there's a unicorn executive out 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.000 there who is indispensable. 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:02.480 I think, look, that's always been Tilicon Valley view of 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.880 you know, great founders and what they can do, and 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.800 this idea that you should follow a founder's vision rather 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:10.080 than say put it to committee. And you know, Steve 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.160 Job's obviously the most famous example of that. Kicked out 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.560 of Apple, returned again around a decade later, and of course, 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.000 you know, the rest is history, and what happened with 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.320 Apple surely wouldn't have happened without Steve Jobs coming back. 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.959 And we've seen this since again and again, whether it's 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.679 you know, Mark Zuckerberg or elor Musk or any sort 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.000 of tech founder, even people like Travis Kalonick, you know, 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.080 who founded Uber. There's this sense that there's this founder skill, 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:39.520 this magic, this uniqueness that should really be sort of 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.200 listened to, and although it can be questioned, you know, 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.919 there's a sort of bias towards always backing the founder. 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.720 Speaking of Sam Altman, of the many comments made about 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.360 Altman over the past week or so, I think, you know, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.679 Paul Graham, who founded why Combinator, where Sam Moultman sort 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.640 of made his name, said a quote that kind of 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.359 rang out around everyone, and he said, you could parachute 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.160 Sam into an island full of cannon, come back in 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.280 five years, and Sam o wont would come out as king. 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.200 And I think that's kind of the view of him 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.440 in particular, and it does sum up, as you say, 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.960 this culture of revering founders like life. 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.120 I don't know actually how to interpret the idea that 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:13.880 you're going to parachute him onto an island full of 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.040 cannibals and it'll come out the winter, because that kild 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:20.920 speak to actually just ambition and being extremely as they 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.799 say in Silicon Valley, goal oriented as opposed necessarily having 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.200 innovative genius, and I think, you know, ideally you want 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.440 a combination of both if things are going to get done. 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:31.959 But you know, if I can just jump in. It's 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:36.560 interesting you mentioned Paul Graham, Dave, because Paul Graham, I think, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.880 is part of the reason why this mentality, this almost 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:44.240 doctrine exists in Silicon Valley. When he started White Combinator, 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.280 he was like a guru among startups, and his teaching, 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.600 as it were, was that the founder is all that matters. 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:52.080 In a way. 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.320 The technology doesn't matter what a startups technology would it 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.320 has under the hood. What matters is if the founder 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.240 is a visionary hacker to hype who wants to build 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.080 an empire, and if you, as an investor can find 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.440 that kind of person, then you should give them free rein. 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.120 The board should give them free rein, and they should 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.880 be able to do whatever they need to do in 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.479 order to build the empire. And that's why in most cases, 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.279 someone like Mark Zuckerberg has majority voting share the board 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.800 does whatever he wants pretty much, even through the most 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:27.120 controversial times. Google's founders also had a lot of control 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.840 of the company, outsized control, so I think a lot 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.200 of it comes down to this kind of ideology that 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.800 Paul kind of created and Sam perpetuated when he took 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.559 over as y combinator head. 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.920 Steve Jobs famously had Bill Campbell as a management coach, 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.120 and Bill Campbell was sort of another one of these 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.240 executives who in a different era was a guru to 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.520 various Silicon Valley titans. But I sort of wonder if 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.560 the Bill Campbell advice managerial advice in the Steve Jobs 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.400 era was qualitatively different than the advice that Paul is 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.440 giving a Sam Altman right now. Is that the case 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.200 Parmi has there been an evolution and the kind of 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:09.040 advice that nascent Silicon Valley titans are hearing from their advisors. 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.280 I have to admit I'm not familiar with the advice 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.920 that Steve Jobs got directly, but I think maybe there 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.640 is a questioning more and more of whether these founder 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.919 types should have all that control. That may still be 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.840 the case at Facebook, but I mean, this is what 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.039 made open ai so unique, right is that it had 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.840 a board that didn't just have teeth, it actually used them, 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.000 and it used them to fire him. So I don't 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.880 know if that's necessarily changing, but it certainly was very, 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:39.039 very different to open ai. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:45.520 Talk a little bit Parmi about Sam Altman's foundational experiences. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.560 Prior to coming to open ai. He had been an entrepreneur, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.080 a young computer with and then lands essentially at y 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.440 Combinator and ends up running it. Yeah, or his bona 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.280 fides before he came to open ai. 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.200 Well, he paid his dues as a startup founder who 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.600 created a failed startup, as so many startup founders do. 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.320 He created a startup called looped, worked on it for 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:09.520 a number of years, devoted his life to it, and 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.760 then eventually sold it to another company, which you might 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.000 say as a success, but in some ways it wasn't 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.440 seen that way. And then he went on to become 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.840 an advisor to Why Combinator, which is like basically one 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:25.000 of the world's the world's most successful startup accelerator of 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.680 all time. You've had companies like Reddit and Stripe and 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.520 Airbnb all came through that, And you know, he became 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:36.400 known for having this real ambitious view and pushing startups 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.320 to be more ambitious. So he famously said to the 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.800 founders of Airbnb, you should change the numbers in your 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.400 pitch deck to investors from millions to billions, and then 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.480 he kind of went into this stage where he got 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.480 really into futuristic technology, and he was kind of gazing 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.600 into the future with things like mind uploading and kind 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.359 of uploading his consciousness into cloud computers and exploring the 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.720 universe he's talked about up publicly. And he then started 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:06.800 investing in very futuristic technology like nuclear fusion, life extension technology, 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.520 and he pushed y Combinator in that direction, But his 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.320 heart really was in AI when he had apparently he 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.120 had this kind of realization at some point in his 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:20.360 late twenties that humans aren't really all that unique and special, 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.120 and our brains can be simulated by machines. And if 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.520 that's the case, we can build a machine that is 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.720 as unique and powerful as the human brain. And that's 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.560 what he set out to do. But with this extra 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.280 kind of level of idealism around spreading all the benefits 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:38.680 of that to humanity. 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.400 Well, we could go down so many roads here. This 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.200 reminds me of the Silicon Valley chatter around the Singularity 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.239 that the Google guys were so fascinated with. It's interesting 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.680 to me that if you get enough technological success the 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.160 next step in your thinking is how do you perpetuate 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.200 yourself forever inside of a machine that Maybe that's a 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.960 conversation for another day, Dave. You know, the idea of 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.880 highly tailed motivated people being given free reign so they 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.760 can be creative isn't limited to Silicon Valley. Obviously. There's 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.240 a long history of it in the business world, you know, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.200 going back to the Rockefellers and Henry Ford and in 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.400 completely different industries. And it's in the arts, right. We 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.120 know that film directors and painters and others are sort 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.560 of seen as masters or mistresses of their own destinies 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.640 and people shouldn't intrude on that. Does all of that 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.200 fairly accrue to Sam Altman in this case? Is he 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:35.680 someone presiding over a company who needs a board to 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:37.400 support him but not get in his way. 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:42.400 Well, I think it's interesting, you know, thinking about Altman's upbringing, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.320 I guess through why combinates, because what that process did, 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.320 I think is gained him a lot of allies and 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.560 a reputation as being, you know, this real sort of 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.480 network guy in tech, and I think that has allowed 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.040 him to move into these future roles with a certain 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.520 level of trust. I thought it was really remarkable. When 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.280 we were hearing just about being fired, one of the 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.480 people to immediately sort of go on to Twitter was 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.680 Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, which was a Y 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:11.280 Combinator company, immediately jumping to sam Untiner's defense and almost 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:13.960 kind of reporting on the situation himself, which was bizarre. 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.520 So I think, you know, although these founders do get 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.800 this kind of reverence, it does have to be earned, 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:20.559 and I think the way that Sam Oltman has earned 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.520 that is not so much to be seen as this 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.839 kind of visionary genius necessarily, but this kind of smart networker, 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:28.880 this smart sort of bringing together of people. And the 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.280 thing that made Y combinators stand out was this really 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.080 fast acceleration. When companies would join y Combinator, they had 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.360 to say a particular metric that they were going to grow, 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.600 and every two weeks they'd checked that it was you know, 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.240 two x four x and so forth. And I think 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:46.280 that's the ethos that Sam Wontman has brought. Now the 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.600 question is, you know, was that something that needs a 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:50.719 board to rain in or is that something that a 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:52.680 board needs to sort of sit back and say, okay, 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.400 off you go and you know, I think sam Moultman 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.959 must have been mindful of the reputation of founders, particularly 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.480 people like Mark Zuckerberg, who you know, the board of 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:03.760 Facebook could never fire Mark zuckerbo they don't have the 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.080 power to do that. I think he was mindful of 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:07.920 how that is seen, and I think he was trying 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.439 to make a statement by saying that not only did 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.520 he not have any financial stake in open ai, but 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.319 he was serving as the behest of the boards. As 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:21.520 it turned out, his reputation ended up being more influential 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:23.640 than the votes of the board open AI. So even 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.160 once they made that decision, the rallying and support around 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.560 sam Oltman, thanks to his reputation within the tech industry 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.839 built over the past several years, meant that was a 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.240 bigger protection for him than having board votes would have 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:36.760 been anyway. 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.320 Did you want to jump in there, Permie, Yeah. 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:41.440 And I think that's a great point about the amount 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.199 of protection that he has. Silicon Valley is such a bubble, 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.640 and if you're a founder, if you're successful and you've 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.040 made a very valuable company, and you're very wealthy and 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.360 you're a billionaire, that you have to behave so badly 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.480 to fall from Silicon Valley's graces, and Elon Musk is 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:01.040 a prime example of that. So I Meantman's return as 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.360 CEO as a prime example of that. But I just 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.280 wanted to go back to one point you mentioned, Tim. 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.199 You were kind of casting our minds back to the 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.280 Rockefellers and people in the arts who have this kind 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.120 of power as founders and as leaders. But I really 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.240 think that in this situation, someone like Sam Altman and 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.040 the leaders of big tech companies are so different to 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.560 any of that, just because of the scale and wealth 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.680 and resources that these companies have, which are unprecedented in history. 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:33.840 I mean, Google today reaches something like four billion users worldwide. 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.679 That's half the global population. You know, although Chatgypt has 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.079 something like two hundred million regular users. I think Microsoft services, 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.000 which are going to use more and more open AI technology, 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.680 touch more than a billion people around the world. So 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.040 we're talking about a few people, these founders, with an 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.160 incredible amount of free reign, who have like an incredible 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.400 global influence at the same time, more so than any 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.000 empire even in history. 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.640 And now, of course, the product they have in hand 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.920 is a revolutionary and transformative product. With Google, you know, 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:10.240 in its pre AI phase, it was a ubiquitous search 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.720 engine that sort of opened the world up to its users. 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.720 No one really worried about it taking the world over. 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.040 You know, it was an information provider. It could be 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:20.920 a you know, assessed pool of disinformation too. And we'll 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.880 get into this morning. I think our conversations, so I 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:27.920 think this particular product AI and technology is shaping people's 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.320 views in different ways as well. But Dave, tell me 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:31.840 what you think. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.480 Well, I think is also worth stressing in terms of 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.240 Oltman's value to open AI. You know, this is a 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.640 company that people are talking about being valued at around 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.480 eighty six billion dollars, and you know, a lot of 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.920 this is because of the personality of Sam Oltman. The 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:47.800 value of open II comes from the fact that for 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.360 the past year, every week or so, it seemed like 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.040 Sam Martman was shaking hands with a world leader. It 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.480 was sitting there in front of Congress talking about AI, 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.600 talking about regulation, and so there is value. There's clear 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:01.920 value of what Sam Mortman is to open AYE. And 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.800 I think it's reputation and the deal with Microsoft and 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.600 the fact that it was and should still be positioned 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.800 as the front runner here is down to the fact 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.640 that he has this ability to communicate what the company 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.880 wants to do clearly, and that doesn't necessarily come all 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.920 that naturally to other people in Silicon Valley. So there 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.000 is an intrinsic value in him himself well, and. 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.880 You know, all of the Steve Jobs comparison, Steve Jobs 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.400 was not an engineer. Steve Jobs wasn't an inventor of technology. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.120 That was Steve Wozniak, his early partner, and Jobs was 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.440 the person who was capable of verticulating the kind of 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.679 Nirvana vision of a laptop and every desk and then 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.120 a mobile phone in every hand. And he was a 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:42.439 good manager, and he was good at ultimately at sort 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.800 of harnessing creative people, and that is a skill as well. 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.679 But what still feels very mysterious to me, you guys, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.480 is why he got pushed out to begin with. Correct 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:52.960 me on this if I'm not up to date, But 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.160 at this point my understanding is the only kind of 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.720 public reason that's been given for why the board pushed 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.760 him out is that board, in their own words more 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.760 or less, and I'm synopsizing, felt that he wasn't being 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.280 candid with them in his communications with the board, and 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.000 there is now I think an Altman commissioned investigation into 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.840 what led up to that. It's being led by Larry 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.400 Summers and some other board members, which also kind of 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.000 speaks to whether or not that actually be an independent investigation. 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.840 But anyway, how did we get here? Why did the 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:29.800 board end up feeling concerned about this wonder kid in their. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.840 Miss Well, I think, first of all, no one still knows, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.760 apart from it seems the people on the board were, 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.600 and possibly Sam because given a couple of his first 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.680 public interviews, he will not answer questions about why he 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.800 was fired. But I think the reason because it's all 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.240 of speculation now, but it seems like the reason kind 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.280 of goes back to what we were just discussing about 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.120 the outsized influence and power of these tech founders. It 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.280 goes unchecked in most cases, and from what people have 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.800 been saying and reporting, the board uneasy essentially with Sam's 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.080 behavior outside of open Ai and some of these ventures 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.040 that he was pursuing. So for example, the iris scanning 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:12.360 company world Coin, which aimed to scan the eyes of 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.640 billions of people around the world in order to identify 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.720 them when the Internet becomes flooded with bots, and also 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.520 to help distribute the trillions of dollars of wealth that 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.800 Altman believed would come about through the attainment of AGI. 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:30.560 He was also pursuing, according to reports, creating a so 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.120 called quote iPhone for AI with Johnny Ive who was 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.240 the former lead designer at Apple. And he was also 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.480 on top of that, reportedly talking to Middle Eastern sovereign 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.080 wealth funds to raise something like ten billion dollars to 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.880 build a chip company. This is a lot of fingers 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.760 to have in different pies, and I think it sounds 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.240 to me like the board was just overall kind of 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.840 uneasy with where he was going with all these different 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:57.880 ventures and whether he was going to use open AI's 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.800 technology for any of that. So when they say he 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.600 wasn't candid, it seems like they were kind of caught 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.200 on the back foot with some of this stuff, and 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.760 they didn't feel like they were performing their fiduciary duty 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.760 to humanity, which was actually their mission as the board. 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.040 Yeah, I want to get into some of this in 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.840 more depth, you know, specifically this particular board's unusual mission. 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.120 But one of the other things that's been out there, Dave, 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.120 is it's been reported and then dismissed by others that 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:27.720 there was this mysterious Project Q being hatched inside open 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.880 AI that maybe ran a foul of this idea of 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.040 AI being harnessed ultimately for the good. It's unclear to 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.800 me but that the board had concerns about this product. 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.840 Others have said, actually, there were no letters written about it. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.320 So the reporting has been very murky around this, and 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:44.960 I don't know that we should rely on it, but 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.640 it gets to this issue of the board being concerned about, 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:51.920 you know, the idea of bots controlling the world and 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.520 open an AI losing its mission along the way. 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.720 Right right, I mean the ultimate endgame concern here is 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.920 that an AIO created that poses a real risk to 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.160 the human race, and any step along that journey makes 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.199 people pretty pretty nervous. Now, the question around whether this 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.639 was a factor in Oltmand's firing, as you say, that 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.000 still mrk it at this point, and I think actually 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.760 it sort of stresses this issue, which is that had 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.320 the board that forced Oltman out, had it had reasoning 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.080 and public explanations for why it did, that we could 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.840 have avoided what's now going to be, you know, this 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.840 endless filling of the void with possibly conspiracies of other 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.240 you know, sort of hyperboles around what open ai is developing. Now. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.360 Q Star, this sort of rumored project that supposedly can 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.879 solve basic math problems. I mean, for starters, calling it 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.000 Q anything seems like a mistake. It's very bonred like, 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.120 I mean, it's remarkable. And just days later we Amazon 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.600 named one of it's a's Q as well, which I 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.360 just find staggering that these companies would be so sort 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.720 of mindless in doing that. But that's another that's another 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:55.440 matter altogether. 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.600 It's like naming something X well, right. 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.680 Yeah, I mean you might as well call killer AI. 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:02.520 I mean, it's just going to make people sort of 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:04.920 nervous or just conspiratorial, which you know, we have enough 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.360 of that right now in the world, of course. But look, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:08.879 so the issue is, you know, it's very hard to 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.360 sort of sometimes for people who aren't experts in AI 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.920 to draw this line between something that might be able 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.760 to do basic math and something that might destroy the universe. 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.280 But supposedly there was some concern within open ai that 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.480 this was you know, a significant break through, a significant step, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.560 and you know, speaking of x Elon Musk was in 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.960 New York recently talking about the firing of Samultman, and 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.840 he made what I thought was unusually lately a pretty 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.280 reasonable point. He was saying, Look, either the board needs 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.480 to be clear about these concerns and allow the public 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:40.359 to know what they were, or if there wasn't a 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.359 good reason, they need to you know, well they have 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.240 stood down now because then you know they needed to 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.760 be accountable for that error. But I think either way 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.119 there needs to be a feeling of this vacuum around 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.479 what exactly the concerns may have been. Because still one 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.480 of the big unknowns in all this is, you know, 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.080 one of open AI's co founders, Ilias skav who was 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.240 the chief scientist open AI and was on the board, 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.159 and he was the sort of pivotal changed mind on 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.320 the board that meant the board had a majority to 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.639 fire Altman. We don't quite know what it was that 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:10.760 concerned him so much or why he changed his mind. 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.480 I mean, he's subsequently come along and said he regretted 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.120 the decision, and Sam Moultman, in part of his statement 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.439 about returning to the company, Sam Moltman said that he 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.200 harbors no ill will towards him, And you know, I've 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.280 never heard that phrase said with much sincerity. So I'm 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.679 kind of keen to see where he lives. Yeah, I 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.359 mean it's like a football owner saying they backed the manager. 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:31.520 You know. 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.080 It's sort of ominous sign that things might not be 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.640 so well. And so this is one of these details 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:39.480 that we need to sort of hear more about. And 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:41.920 I think open AYE, if it wants to be at 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.520 the front of talking to governments and being this hugely 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:48.159 an entry company, the trade off has to be that 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.040 it is more public, perhaps than tech companies would typically 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.680 be in the past. It doesn't get to hide behind 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.639 this super secrecy that Silicon Valley is more comfortable with. 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.200 It has to tell us what was going on here. 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.119 We should also know. And Elon Musk says he was 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.520 an early board member at opmen AI along with Sam Altman. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.200 Before Sam became CEO, he was on the board and 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.120 as Parmi noted earlier, Elon has run rough shot over 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.240 his own board. We're going to take a break in 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.760 a sec But this idea that AI is going to 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.840 take over the world and that open AI is sitting 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.879 on top of a Pandora's box, is that warranted. Parmi. 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.359 First of all, I would say an answer to that 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:30.119 question that I think open ai secretly loves that people 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:34.720 think that because it makes their technology. However, but they 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.240