OpenAI’s Sam Altman Regenerates the Gilded Age Playbook
Industry leaders calling for regulation, as the AI CEO did before US senators recently, is an old-school tactic that has nothing to do with the greater good.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified to a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee about regulation of his industry.
Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg
What to make of the spectacle of Sam Altman, the boyish face of all things AI, coming to Washington to beg for … regulation? In his written testimony, Altman declared: “OpenAI believes that regulation of AI is essential.” Not only that, he offered to help policymakers get it done.
In response, our nation’s senators fell over themselves to hail Altman as a selfless techno-prophet, at one point going so far as to offer him the job as chief regulator over artificial intelligence. Instead, they should have been asking themselves why a powerful entrepreneur who currently dominates an industry would be so welcoming of regulation in the first place. (Spoiler: It’s not just any regulation, but we’ll get to that in a bit.)