The Digital Insider

In recent months, Mr. Altman has done more than anyone else to usher in this future--and commercialize it. OpenAI, the company he leads, in November released ChatGPT, the chatbot with an uncanny ability to produce humanlike writing that has become one of the most viral products in the history of technology. In the process, OpenAI went from a small nonprofit into a multibillion-dollar company, at near record speed, thanks in part to the launch of a for-profit arm that enabled it to raise $13 billion from Microsoft Corp., according to investor documents. This success has come as part of a delicate balancing act. Mr. Altman said he fears what could happen if AI is rolled out into society recklessly. He co-founded OpenAI eight years ago as a research nonprofit, arguing that it's uniquely dangerous to have profits be the main driver of developing powerful AI models. He is so wary of profit as an incentive in AI development that he has taken no direct financial stake in the business he built, he said--an anomaly in Silicon Valley, where founders of successful startups typically get rich off their equity.