Brian’s Reviews > Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI > Status Update

As the dust settles on this chapter, one thing remains clear: the human toll of unchecked power and unbridled greed.

Data is the last frontier of colonization.

OpenAI was not, in fact, a typical tech company, the independent directors observed. It was arguably the world's most powerful AI company, overseeing the development of what they felt was one of the most consequential technologies. What did it mean that OpenAI was trying to build AGI when its senior leadership couldn't trust either basic or critical information coming from the CEO?

In reality, the analogies to intelligence are once again anthropomorphizing and exaggerating the capabilities of the technology.

Nothing about this form of AI coming to the fore or even existing at all was inevitable; it was the culmination of thousands of subjective choices, made by the people who had the power to be in the decision-making room. In the same way, future generations of AI technologies are not predetermined. But the question of governance returns: Who will get to shape them?

The future of AI—the shape that this technology takes—is inextricably tied to our future. The question of how to govern AI, then, is really a question about how to ensure we make our future better, not worse.