Examining Altman’s statements over the years reveals how much his vision has fueled today’s AI boom. Even among Silicon Valley’s many hyperboleists, he has been particularly content to talk about open questions — whether the big language model includes components of human thought, whether language can create intelligence — as if they had already been answered.
What he says about AI when he says it, but it does convince us of one thing: the road we’re going down with AI is either scary or scary, and Openei will need epic amounts of money to push it to the right destination. In that sense, he is the ultimate hype man.
To understand how his voice has shaped our understanding of what AI can do, we read almost everything he’s said about the technology (we requested an interview with Altman, but he wasn’t available).
His own words reveal how we got here.
Finally…
Altman did not deceive the world. Openei has ushered in a true tech revolution, with increasingly impressive language models that have attracted millions of users. Even skeptics will agree that the LLMS’s conversational skills are astounding.
But Altman’s hype is always less tied to today’s talent than it is to philosophical yesterday. It’s an approach that quite easily doubles as a case of more capital and friendly regulation. Long before large samples of language existed, he was envisioning an AI that required the distribution of wealth, just as he envisioned humanity colonizing other planets. Over and over again, the promises of the destination — absurdity, superintelligence, a healthy and wealthy world — have already come, and the evidence is second to none.
Even if the LLMS eventually hits a wall, there is little reason to think that its faith in a techno-utopian future will be shaken. Vision was never about the current model’s specs anyway.