10 Jan 2025, 02:00 PM IST Altman has become a master of modulating between humility and hype. (AFP) Summary OpenAI’s chief seems to be operating a more sophisticated version of the Silicon Valley hype machine. It matters because he isn’t just selling a service but shaping how businesses and policymakers view AI Gift this article Also read: Artificial intelligence is the latest opium of the masses Altman has become a master of modulating between humility and hype. He’ll admit to his past guesswork while making equally speculative new predictions about the future, a confusing cocktail that deflects attention from thornier current issues. Take all his pronouncements with a large pinch of salt. Tech company leaders have long tried to sell us a mirage of the future. Elon Musk claimed he’d put self-driving taxis on the road by 2020 and Steve Jobs was famously mocked for his ‘reality distortion field.’ But Altman’s strategic ambiguity is more sophisticated because he mixes his claims with apparent forthrightness, tweeting Monday for instance that OpenAI was losing money because its premium service was too popular, or admitting to his previous guesswork on AGI. That can make other predictions and claims sound more credible. The stakes are also different than for Musk, who sells cars and rockets, and Jobs, who sold consumer products. Altman is marketing software that could transform education and employment for millions of people, in much the same way the internet itself changed just about everything, and his predictions can help steer the decisions of businesses and governments that fear being left behind. One risk, for instance, is a potential weakening of regulation. While AI safety institutes popped up in several countries in 2024, including the US, the UK, Japan, Canada and Singapore, there’s a chance that global oversight will pull back this year. Policy research firm Eurasia Group, founded by American political scientist Ian Bremmer, cites a loosening of AI regulation as one of its top risks for 2025. Bremmer points out US President-elect Donald Trump is likely to rescind President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI and that the international AI Safety Summit series, instigated by the UK, will be renamed “AI Action Summit" when it’s held this year in Paris (where promising startups like Mistral AI also happen to be based). In one way, Altman’s comments about AGI’s imminent arrival help justify this pivot to “action" from “safety" in those summits, because meaningful oversight looks more challenging to set up when things are moving so quickly.