[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]
The Book of the Week is “The Optimist, Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future” by Keach Hagey, published in 2025.
The Baby Boomers generation of the 1960’s had its Timothy Leary, who was a big advocate of dropping out of school, work and society in general. The goal was to experiment with LSD and other drugs with the hope of becoming more creative.
From the 1990’s into the single-digit 2000’s, computer programmers and Web developers chose to engage in tech startups as their drug. In 2011, Peter Thiel, born in 1967– just around the time Leary’s popularity was waning– also encouraged students to drop out, but awarded them grant money with the hope they would manage successful businesses.
Sam Altman, one such student, was typical for his time and place. Born in 1985, Altman grew up in the Chicago and Saint Louis areas. His philosophy was “Go big or go home.” He never heard the word “impossible.” Beginning in summer 2005, a Boston-area technology consultant called Y Combinator helped startups get started with funding and mentoring. Altman was accepted to this program.
Altman’s first venture was a social-media application eventually called Loopt. The major drawback of its business model was inefficiency. Another was privacy concerns. Years later, the concept was joked about by comedian Aziz Ansari — meeting up with his friends (if they happened to be nearby) by seeing their locations on their electronic devices.
Back in 2006, Loopt had to negotiate separate contracts with multiple, competing cell phone companies across the country. Big Tech had yet to introduce the smart phone, on which the internet would be visible worldwide on one website that Loopt could have had, regardless of which phone service its tech-savvy, young customers subscribed to.
Altman’s peripheral hobby consisted of working to achieve nuclear fusion (not to be confused with the radioactive– carcinogenic!– fission) as a “clean” energy source. Propagandists repeatedly use certain words, such as “clean” in an attempt to reassure people that certain products will do them no harm. The following is just a small sample of other overused, euphemistic words:
- free (nothing is ever free; someone is always paying for, say, government programs; usually taxpayers);
- safe (nothing is ever 100% safe; instead, say “low-risk” or “high risk” but never safe);
- cheaper (everything is expensive; instead, say “less expensive”).
Anyway, fusion is one of those problems that will be solved when enough resources are thrown at it. But even when it gets solved, it is possible such an endeavor isn’t worth doing in the long run, like when chemist Glenn Seaborg proved that alchemy could create gold from bismuth.
At any rate, the author went on a tangent naming the Silicon Valley men who joined the Extropian community, thinking deep thoughts on the mysteries of the universe.
Simply put, AI software applications can replace any kinds of human activities that have mathematics behind them: all games of 100% skill such as chess, some vehicle-operating skills, robotics, medicine, marketing of consumer products, etc. But, AI will never replace, in a completely unbiased way, activities with linguistic-oriented aspects to them: music and art.
Creative works need to be translated into words for AI software to work on them, and the translators (with all their ethnic, religious, cultural, social and political biases) control their interpretation. Besides, in order to take the actions that allegedly improve humans’ lives, AI software must become spyware on everything users do.
The propaganda of American science fiction in popular culture, is no longer:
“Commies are going to infiltrate the world so we must kill them!”
It has become:
“AI is going to infiltrate the world so we must learn to control it via a few thousand alpha males’ brain power, financial power and political power!”
The arrogance is matched only by the title sequence of the TV show, The Outer Limits: “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control…”
For decades, the world has seen the ways the United Nations has monitored, and tried to stem conflicts, among diverse peoples. AI presents a similar challenge, as it can globally manipulate human thought and systems.
It is unclear whether the world is ready to sit down at the bargaining table to discuss international cooperation on the future of AI. In the United States, in recent years, waves of propaganda have screamed about:
- privacy concerns;
- of various kinds of online crime; and
- of how psychologically damaging all-day, every-day, staring at, working, playing and communicating through, an electronic toy really is.
The prolonged, forced confinement prompted by the COVID lockdown got anti-social (solitary) behavior out of the country’s system. Influenced by more of the above propaganda, in the future, Americans might be ready to spend less time on their toys, and more time on face-to-face activities, outside.
Read the book to learn about Altman’s career, and the common problems that plague tech startups in the context of the brave new world of AI: bureaucratic shenanigans, hypocrisy, secrecy, conflicts, competition, and regulation (or lack thereof). Hint: It is yet one more worldwide technology project consisting of redistribution of wealth among the wealthy, run by alpha males.
ENDNOTE: Grammar sticklers would take issue with the less than perfect writing in this book. The author made errors commonly seen in books published in recent years in America. She didn’t know what “a.m.” and “p.m.” stood for, and awkwardly put “being” in the middle of sentences, among other minor errors.