OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab aimed at safely developing general artificial intelligence. It soon became clear this would require vast amounts of expensive processing power. To pay for it a profit-making subsidiary was set up to sell AI tools. On paper the power remained with the non-profit’s board, whose aim is to ensure that agI benefits everyone, and whose responsibility is to “humanity”. But relying on corporate structures soley to policy technology is folly. A single outfit cannot strike the best balance between advancing AI, attracting talent and investment, assessing AI’s threats and keeping humanity safe. Conflicts of interest arise. Defending “humanity” risks seeing investors nd employees flock o another firm that would charge ahead regardless, e.g. Microsoft. Government is the body that can more convincingly claim to represent the common interest, and government should step in as regulator, setting boundaries within which companies like OpenAI can operate.
