Sam Altman OpenAI Two Perspectives Unveiled

Exploring AI Ethics and Ambition

EMPIRE OF AI Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altmans OpenAI, by Karen Hao

THE OPTIMIST Sam Altman OpenAI and the Race to Invent the Future, by Keach Hagey

The paper clip problem is a well known ethics thought experiment in the world of artificial intelligence. It imagines a superintelligent AI charged with the seemingly harmless goal of making as many paper clips as possible. Trouble is as the philosopher Nick Bostrom put it in 2003 without common sense limits it might transform first all of earth and then increasing portions of space into paper clip manufacturing facilities. The tale has long served as a warning about objectives pursued too literally.

Two new books that orbit the entrepreneur Sam Altman and the firm he co founded OpenAI suggest we may already be living with a version of the problem. In Empire of AI the journalist Karen Hao who has worked for The Wall Street Journal and contributes to The Atlantic argues that the pursuit of an artificial superintelligence has become its own figurative paper clip factory devouring too much energy minerals and human labor. Meanwhile The Optimist by the Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey leaves readers suspecting that the earnest and seemingly innocuous paper clip maker who ends up running the world for his own ends could be Altman himself.

Empire of AI A Critical Global View

Empire of AI is the broader and more critical of the two. Hao profiled OpenAI in 2020 two years before its most famous product the intelligent chatbot called ChatGPT debuted publicly. She portrays OpenAI and other companies that make up the fast growing AI sector as a modern day colonial world order. Much like the European powers of the 18th and 19th centuries they seize and extract precious resources to feed their vision of artificial intelligence. In a corrective to tech journalism that rarely leaves Silicon Valley Hao ranges well beyond the Bay Area with extensive fieldwork in Kenya Colombia and Chile.

The Optimist Altman Through a Biographical Lens

The Optimist is a more conventional biography concentrated on Altmans life and times. Born in Chicago to progressive parents named Connie and Jerry in the 1980s Jerry innovated a way to stir investment in affordable housing Altman was heavily influenced by their do gooder spirit. You cant out nice Jerry his friends would say. Altmans relentlessly upbeat manner and genuine technical skill made him a perfect fit for Silicon Valley. Charming and smart he tells people what they want to hear and has a knack for talking big in exactly the way 2010s Bay Area investors liked.

Altmans Silicon Valley Ascent

The arc of Altmans life also follows a classic script. He drops out of Stanford to launch a start up that fizzles but the effort brings him to the attention of Paul Graham the co founder of Y Combinator an influential tech incubator that launched companies like Airbnb and Dropbox. By age 28 Altman has risen to succeed Graham as the organizations president setting the stage for his leadership in the AI revolution.

The OpenAI executive Sam Altman testifies at a Senate hearing in May 2025 about the global artificial intelligence race. Credit Chip Somodevilla Getty Images