System Determines Behaviour

The financial media reported this week that OpenAI, which unfurled the artificial intelligence revolution when it launched ChatGPT, would become a for-profit company. This is something of a milestone in the annals of business because the reason the com­pany was incorporated as a not-for-profit venture in the beginning was because of a stated mission to ensure that the technology would be safe for humanity. That could only be achieved by not being hostage to the demands of capitalism and the pressure of meeting quarterly targets. It then changed the goalpost by turning into a firm where profits would be permitted but capped. And now, if you believe the reports, it has dived headfirst into the very pool that it was wary about and its board of directors, who earlier were tasked with ensuring its earlier mission, would now be like any other.

This is a fallout of a coup that hap­pened some time back which pushed its founder Sam Altman out. At that time, the employees rebelled against this change and Altman returned. The reason for the employees being on Altman’s side was because they were vested with stock options, which, should OpenAI stick to its found­ing mission, would mean giving up millions of dollars. And now Altman has decided to shed the pretence and, some reports say, he will get 7 per cent of the company. It will have an IPO eventually and that would make him a billionaire. This is probably deserved because he did make OpenAI what it is today. And his argument has been that making OpenAI the leader in a sector where the competition was the deep-pocketed likes of Alphabet and Meta, needed unimaginable funds that only a profit-driven enterprise could gather. If OpenAI was its earlier avatar, then it wouldn’t be what it is today and its workforce would go elsewhere.

If the metamorphosis indicates anything, then it is that system deter­mines behaviour. Intentions rarely hold up when the ability to be competi­tive is under question. If the choice is between survival and idealism, then most people and institutions choose the former because they tell themselves that if they don’t exist then the idealism doesn’t either. It is why so many enter into government service moon-eyed about the good they want to do and soon become just like any other cog in the machine. In politics, you have the ex­ample of Aam Aadmi Party, which rode into power under an anti-corruption movement, and now you really don’t see them touting it at all. They said allying with any other party was never going to happen because everyone else was corrupt but are now firmly in an alliance. It is the story of every other political party too, except that the initial idealism would be a different one.

This is probably as it must be. Be­cause OpenAI exists, the generative AI space is not the preserve of multination­al behemoths who already control our online lives. There is one more alterna­tive for the consumer and while it might not be the promised Mecca, it is still better than what was present earlier.

artificial intelligencecompromiseidealismOpen AIprofit company