There's No Such Thing as an AI 'Lab'

The term lends an air of scientific rigor to what are really billion-dollar corporations. When did AI companies become AI labs? That term, and the image of studious, exacting white-coated scientists that it conjures, has become curiously entrenched as a descriptor for the businesses swiftly escorting the world into an existentially unsettling future. AI companies themselves have embraced the label: When Chris Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, addressed the pope earlier this year, he repeatedly referred to his company, one of the most powerful AI enterprises in the world, as a lab. Industry press releases, technology commentators, and news publications have all picked up the word too.