🧠 Brain Food For You
Plus OpenAI implodes + work with me in December
It’s a short workweek in the US, so I’m focusing on a couple of announcements + some reading, listening, watching for your pleasure. of course I couldn’t stop myself from writing about OpenAI.
🏡 House Keeping
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🤝 I’m opening some room in my schedule for one-off private business strategy sessions as a Black Friday promotion or whatever. Registration is open until December 1, 2023 or I’m fully booked, whichever comes first. Learn more and reserve yours here.
🤖 Did Somebody Die?
ICYMI, OpenAI, the non-profit behind the for-profit behind ChatGPT, imploded on Friday when the non-profit board forced CEO Sam Altman out, citing that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board,” a vague statement that still has not been clarified enough to make anyone happy.
I don’t have a big take here. At least not yet. The story is changing very quickly, and it looks like Altman may be back at OpenAI soon. Or maybe he’ll be at Microsoft. Or maybe he’ll gather the 700+ OpenAI employees who have pledged to resign to start his own company. I’m sure he could raise the money for it.
I don’t really care.
Companies implode. People get fired, including CEOs. Often. This one is particularly amusing and popcorn-worthy because much of it is playing out on X in realtime, including this cringey exchange between OpenAI’s chief scientist apologizing for his role in the ouster and Altman, who has reposted it with some hearts. Pass the popcorn.
And yes, OpenAI is structured in a weird way that makes some of the legal and organizational questions interesting to people who care about such things, myself included.
But what’s really interesting is the response to this routine affair by the Internet public.
You would think someone had died.
Now, this is kind of funny. Funny not in the “ha ha” way but in the “I have to laugh because if I don’t I’ll cry and pull my hair out and generally be unable to continue to exist” way. Funny because OpenAI is based in the US, a country quite literally sending military funding to Israel as it kills even more Palestinians, including bombing a school run by the UN. I don’t mean to pull a whataboutism, and I certainly am not policing what people choose to comment about on online, but I personally can’t take this seriously right now.
This kind of priority shift is one of the primary negative implications of longtermism, which is a key philosophy behind the push for AI: the far future becomes more important than the immediate future. The people who could die are are more important than those who are dying. The OpenAI shit show risks the future of AI,1 and with it all of the utopian impacts that adherents dream of.2
So for OpenAI fans, Altman’s departure is a tragedy. I’ve seen posts where people are sharing their grief, their outrage, and their fear.3 He was almost immediately compared to Steve Jobs, who was famously pushed out of Apple and remains the most admired person in history of Silicon Valley. Altman has reached sainthood, a dangerous place for any living human to be.
AI advocates are fervent believers, and the mix of Sci-Fi, business, and the fate of humanity feels almost religious in tone.4 And this is the take, I think. OpenAI is run by humans, not gods. Humans who have personal incentives, vendettas, and very little oversight.
OpenAI wants to make Artificial General Intelligence,5 something that if created would irrevocably change the future of humanity. And if that, something so unbelievably important, can be disrupted by internecine infighting between a handful people, maybe corporations shouldn’t be at the forefront of the push for AI at all.
But they are just people. And the more we platform and praise and breathlessly follow every move they make, the more we add to the belief that they are special, chosen, somehow smarter or better.6
They’re not.
🧠 Brain Food For You
AI is going great, if by great you mean healthcare corporations are happily using it to wrongfully deny benefits. (via
)If you’re in the US, here are two very easy emails to send to back a ceasefire in Gaza (though as I type this there are early reports of a truce agreement…we shall see) and oppose the US funding Israel’s military. Over 12,000 Palestinians have been killed, and Israel has been bombing areas where the hostages Hamas took on October 7th are believed to be located. Madness.
I’m late on this but the Wheel of Time show is actually good? I was very happy to discover this, especially since the new seasons of The Witcher AND Ragnarok suck.
This pumpkin bundt situation is a great pie alternative (or addition!) for the holiday season. I made it a few weeks ago with King Arthur 1:1 gluten free flour and it was great, even better day two. The maple icing is SO GOOD. h/t my mom for sending me this recipe. Thanks mom!
Rideshare drivers in Bangladesh started bypassing apps like Uber and the apps lowered their fees! It’s almost like…companies need YOU more than you need them! It’s almost like your labor sustains these multinational corporations! it’s almost like workers create value! Wild.
Speaking of labor, this essay on freelancing and boundaries is super timely (it discusses how the New York Times has effectively forced out freelancers for their position on Palestine). Service-driven business owners run into a lot of the same issues. As the author
writes, “What do you owe an institution that is not willing to give you a job? More importantly, what should you owe them? The short answer is: You owe them the work in question, and before and after that they can fuck off.” Yep. has become a favorite of mine on Substack, and this piece about what OpenAI and Scientology have in common might be the most me-coded thing I’ve ever seen. Real ones know I am OBSESSED with Scientology. Someday I’ll write about how I used to go on dates to Scientology Centers…Have a good read or watch or listen you want to share with the class? Comments are open!
Yes, there are many AI companies, but OpenAI is the most heralded, respected, and…um…loved. The cold embrace of a corporation is great preparation for the cold embrace of our future robot overlords. Maybe they’ll be sexy Cylons. That’s what keeps the flame of hope alive for me.
It also risks all of the money people are making building on top of ChatGPT…
I’m deliberately not linking here because folks can feel how they want to feel and I’m not trying to make fun of or call out any one person specifically.
I know I think everything feels religious in tone but this does! It all does! Everyone just wants religion!
Something I’ll talk a bit about in my final Andreessen piece, but OpenAI is on Team Doomer but Do It, meaning they are afraid of what AGI will do so they think they have to make it first so they can control how it is created. I—think this is silly. Just don’t do it! Say no! Also I am not at all convinced that AGI is possible, but I do think that showy AI models can do plenty of damage.
Eric Newcomer has a solid piece that traces Altman’s professional career, and shows that he is best at one thing: failing upward.