Best Of: Who Wins — and Who Loses — in the A.I. Revolution?

<p>This past year, we’ve witnessed considerable progress in the development of artificial intelligence, from the release of the image generators like DALL-E 2 to chat bots like ChatGPT and Cicero to a flurry of self-driving cars. So this week, we’re revisiting some of our favorite conversations about the rise of A.I. and what it means for the world. </p><p>Today’s conversation is with Sam Altman. He’s the C.E.O. of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. When I talked to him in June 2021, ChatGPT was still over a year away from being available to the public for testing. But the A.I. developments since then have only increased the salience of the questions Altman raised in his 2021 essay “<a href="https://moores.samaltman.com/">Moore’s Law for Everything</a>.” </p><p>Altman’ argument is this: Since the 1970s, computers have gotten exponentially better even as they’re gotten cheaper, a phenomenon known as Moore’s Law. Altman believes that A.I. could get us closer to Moore’s Law for everything: it could make everything better even as it makes it cheaper. Housing, health care, education, you name it. </p><p>But what struck me about his essay is that last clause: “if we as a society manage it responsibly.” Because, as Altman also admits, if he is right then A.I. will generate phenomenal wealth largely by destroying countless jobs — that’s a big part of how everything gets cheaper — and shifting huge amounts of wealth from labor to capital. And whether that world becomes a post-scarcity utopia or a feudal dystopia hinges on how wealth, power and dignity are then distributed — it hinges, in other words, on politics.</p><p>Mentioned: </p><p><a href="https://moores.samaltman.com/">“Moore’s Law for Everything”</a> by Sam Altman</p><p>Recommendations: </p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Nights-Other-Stories-Greg/dp/1596062401">Crystal Nights</a> by Greg Egan</p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Last-Question-When-World-Ends/dp/1884214495">The Last Question</a> by Isaac Asimov</p><p><a href="http://www.skyhunter.com/