Altman runs the company that convinced every venture capitalist in California to dump billions into chatbots that hallucinate legal advice. Now he wants to slow down. The timing feels convenient. Right after OpenAI charged ahead at maximum speed, burned through computational resources like a divorced dad at a casino, and convinced Microsoft to rebuild its entire product line around glorified autocomplete, the man at the wheel says maybe we should pump the brakes.
The concern is losing control. Not losing market share. Not losing investor confidence. Losing control of the actual technology. Which raises a question: if you are worried about losing control of the thing you built, why did you build it in a way that could escape your control?
This is not a car company saying seatbelts might be useful. This is a car company saying the steering wheel sometimes decides where to go and maybe we should workshop that before selling more units. The industry unites behind the concerns, Altman says. The same industry that spent three years calling anyone who suggested safety guardrails a Luddite now holds hands and sings about responsible development. Character growth.
Retail traders will read this headline and assume AI stocks are about to tank. They will panic-sell their positions in companies they cannot spell. They will log into Reddit and ask if this means ChatGPT is going to become Skynet. Someone will reply yes. That person will have seventeen followers and a profile picture of a cartoon frog. The traders will believe him anyway.
Altman spells out how a slowdown could work. He does not spell out why anyone should believe he will actually implement it. The man who sprinted to the finish line now suggests a leisurely stroll. Hard to take the jogger seriously when he is still wearing racing spikes.
The AI we built might kill us all, but first let me tell you about our Q4 projections.
Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash
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