The Journal. - Introducing - Artificial: The OpenAI Story

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

OpenAI was founded in 2015 as an idealistic nonprofit. Its goal was to build artificial general intelligence or AGI — an AI that could do most jobs better than a human could. In the years that followed, OpenAI’s pursuit of AGI led them to develop the viral chatbot ChatGPT. The company became one of the top AI labs in the world. But to get there, OpenAI’s leaders would compromise nearly every one of their founding ideals. Over four episodes, we explore how a little-known startup built one of the world’s most viral tech products … and nearly tore itself apart in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2015, a young tech executive named Greg Brockman showed up to dinner at a fancy hotel in Silicon Valley. This was at the Rosewood in Palo Alto. Very nice view of, you know, kind of the rolling hills and you can see the interstate in the distance. Always love a view of an interstate. At the table were some big names. Elon Musk was there. So was the investor Sam Altman. Greg arrived late. I felt very bad because I felt like I kind of missed all the good stuff. But fortunately, the opposite was true. I think the good stuff was about to begin.

They were there to talk about starting an artificial intelligence company. They were there to talk about starting an artificial intelligence company. And within a year, they made it a reality. They called it OpenAI. Eventually, that startup released a product you've probably heard of. Can you introduce yourself? Sure thing. I'm ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI.

I'm designed to chat, answer questions, and provide... ChatGPT was a huge hit. It transformed OpenAI from a little-known startup into a tech powerhouse. But ChatGPT also triggered concerns about things like factuality. What percentage was fact and what percentage was fiction? Well, 50-50. And about the kinds of data chatbots are trained on. I don't want to hear this about you're saving humanity by stealing authors' work. It's just not true.

But OpenAI's biggest threat would come from within. Today, San Francisco-based OpenAI announced the firing of co-founder and CEO Sam Altman. Probably one of the most famous CEOs in the world right now has just abruptly lost his job, and no one really understands why. I'm Kate Leinbaugh, and we've got a new miniseries from The Journal called Artificial. It's all about open AI, how it built one of the most viral tech products in the world, and nearly tore itself apart in the process. Find it in The Journal feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, starting December 3rd.