You are currently viewing Book Review: ‘Empire of AI,’ by Karen Hao; ‘The Optimist,’ by Keach Hagey

Two journalists explore the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and present complementary portraits of its notorious co-founder.

EMPIRE OF AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, by Karen Hao

THE OPTIMIST: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future, by Keach Hagey

The “paper clip problem” is a well‑known ethics thought experiment in the world of artificial intelligence. It imagines a superintelligent A.I. charged with the seemingly harmless goal of making as many paper clips as possible. Trouble is, as the philosopher Nick Bostrom put it in 2003, without common-sense limits it might transform “first all of earth and then increasing portions of space into paper clip manufacturing facilities.” The tale has long served as a warning about objectives pursued too literally.

Two new books that orbit the entrepreneur Sam Altman and the firm he co-founded, OpenAI, suggest we may already be living with a version of the problem. In “Empire of

Keep reading this article on The New York Times Small Business.

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