Of course, the longer answer is much more complicated, and it involves a lot more than ChatGPT. However, before we dig into that, we should probably start with the comments from Sam Altman, the creator of ChatGPT, that prompted this column:

In what’s perhaps an attempt to head off bad press — or, at very least, convince people he’s not the bad guy — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has given Forbes an interview in which he claims that his for-profit company is ultimately going to bring about capitalism’s downfall.

…The CEO behind the record-breaking ChatGPT has a bit of a strange background, the TL;DR of which being that he once admitted to being a doomsday prepper who believes that killer artificial intelligence or a lab-modified virus could bring about the end of days.

Much of the OpenAI CEO’s rhetoric in his recent Forbes exclusive hinges on the future — the future of the company, of course, but also on the future of AI in general, and how Altman believes it will dovetail with sentient AIs, otherwise known as artificial general intelligence (AGI).

…In one exchange, Forbes’ Alex Konrad noted the inherent tension regarding capitalism that’s found between OpenAI’s “research-driven” foundation and the buckets of money investors have put into it. Altman had a provocative response.

“I think capitalism is awesome. I love capitalism,” he told Forbes. “Of all of the bad systems the world has, it’s the best one — or the least bad one we found so far. I hope we find a way better one.”

“I think that if AGI really truly fully happens,” he continued, “I can imagine all these ways that it breaks capitalism.”…