The funniest, most bizarre, and just plain weird moments from Kevin Roose's new book about OpenAI and Anthropic
Tech journalist Kevin Roose documented the history behind major AI advancements and at times crazy moments that led to where we are today.
In Kevin Roose's book AGI Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence, readers are treated to a collection of bizarre and humorous moments from the world of OpenAI and Anthropic. Here are some of the most memorable incidents:
1. During a 2022 retreat outside Yosemite, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and cofounder Ilya Sutskever led a bizarre ceremony. Wearing bathrobes, they burned a wooden statue of a demonic figure, symbolizing a misaligned artificial general intelligence that had slipped free of human control. The act was said to represent a Kabuki-style performance, with Sutskever shouting "For the glorious future of humanity!" after the statue was set ablaze.
2. In 2019, to woo Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman borrowed a Microsoft Surface laptop loaded with a demo of GPT-2 and presented it to Microsoft CFO Amy Hood. When presented with a prompt, the AI system responded by suggesting Microsoft fire all its employees and pivot to Azure, eliciting laughter from the Microsoft executives.
3. After an ousting of Sam Altman from OpenAI in November 2023, two employees, Jan Leike and Wojciech Zaremba, decided to confront Quora CEO Adam D Angelo about the decision. The duo banged on Angelo's door, yelling for him to pay attention. When they received no response, they threatened to call the police unless Angelo answered the door. Angelo was the only board member who voted for Altman's ouster who remained on the reorganized board.
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