The many contradictions of Sam Altman | Your job is (probably) safe from artificial intelligence | Beijing is making its biggest move yet to patch up the property crisis threatening to blow up China's economy | What kind of legacy does Rishi Sunak want to leave behind?

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� � � � � � The many contradictions of Sam Altman - The Economist    Call it the “Burning Man” theory of tech. Every so often, the hopes and dreams of a technological visionary are almost torched by those who surround them. In 1985 Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he fathered, and did not return for 11 years. In 2000 Elon Musk’s co-founders ousted him as CEO of X.com, the firm that went on to become PayPal, a digital-payments platform. In 2008 Jack Dorsey’s fellow creators of Twitter ended his short reign as chief executive of the social-media app. On November 17th Sam Altman looked like he would become the Bay Area’s next burnt effigy, ousted from OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence (AI) firm he co-founded in 2015, by a board that accused him of lacking candour. But on November 21st, after four days in which he, his employees and OpenAI’s investors, such as Microsoft, wrangled feverishly for his reinstatement, he was back in control of the firm. “Wow it even took Jesus three days,” one wag tweeted in the midst of the drama. Instead of Mr Altman, three of the four board members who gave him the boot are toast. It is not the first time in his 38 years on Earth that Mr Altman has been at the centre of such an imbroglio. He is a man of such supreme self-confidence that people tend to treat him as either genius or opportunist—the latter usually in private. Like Jobs, he has a messianic ability to inspire people, even if he doesn’t have the iPhone creator’s God-like eye for design. Like Mr Musk, he has ironclad faith in his vision for the future, even if he lacks the Tesla boss’s legendary engineering skills. Like Mr Dorsey, he has shipped a product, ChatGPT, that has become a worldwide topic of conversation—and consternation. Yet along the way he has irked people. This started at Y Combinator (YC), a hothouse for entrepreneurs, which he led from 2014 until he was pushed out in 2019 for scaling it up too fast and getting distracted by side hustles such as OpenAI. At OpenAI, he fell out with Mr Musk, another co-founder, and some influential AI researchers who left in a huff. The latest evidence comes from the four board members who clumsily sought to fire him. The specific reasons for their decision remain unclear. But it would not be a surprise if Mr Altman’s unbridled ambition played a role. Continued here � � � � � � Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium Your job is (probably) safe from artificial intelligence - The Economist    The age of “generative” artificial intelligence has well and truly arrived. Openai’s chatbots, which use large-language-model (llm) technology, got the ball rolling in November. Now barely a day goes by without some mind-blowing advance. An ai-powered song featuring a fake “Drake” and “The Weeknd” recently shook the music industry. Programs which convert text to video are making fairly convincing content. Before long consumer products such as Expedia, Instacart and OpenTable will plug into Openai’s bots, allowing people to order food or book a holiday by typing text into a box. A recently leaked presentation, reportedly from a Google engineer, suggests the tech giant is worried about how easy it is for rivals to make progress. There is more to come—probably a lot more. The development of ai raises profound questions. Perhaps most pressing, though, is a straightforward one. What does this mean for the economy? Many have grand expectations. New research by Goldman Sachs, a bank, suggests that “widespread ai adoption could eventually drive a 7% or almost $7trn increase in annual global gdp over a ten-year period.” Academic studies point to a three-percentage-point rise in annual labour-productivity growth in firms that adopt the technology, which would represent a huge uplift in incomes compounded over many years. A study published in 2021 by Tom Davidson of Open Philanthropy, a grantmaking outfit, puts a more than 10% chance on “explosive growth”—defined as increases in global output of more than 30% a year—sometime this century. A few economists, only half-jokingly, hold out the possibility of global incomes becoming infinite. Financial markets, however, point to rather more modest outcomes. In the past year share prices of companies involved in ai have done worse than the global average, although they have risen in recent months (see chart 1). Interest rates are another clue. If people thought that the technology was going to make everyone richer tomorrow, rates would rise because there would be less need to save. Inflation-adjusted rates and subsequent gdp growth are strongly correlated, notes research by Basil Halperin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit) and colleagues. Yet since the hype about ai began in November, long-term rates have fallen. They remain very low by historical standards. Financial markets, the researchers conclude, “are not expecting a high probability of…ai-induced growth acceleration…on at least a 30-to-50-year time horizon.” Continued here � � � � � � Beijing is making its biggest move yet to patch up the property crisis threatening to blow up China's economy - Business Insider    China's finally starting to do something about the three-year property crisis that's been weighing on its COVID-scarred economy. Beijing is urging banks to boost financing for property developers, media outlets reported this week. Authorities may let banks offer unsecured short-term loans to the developers on a "white list" of 50 developers for the first time, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. They include embattled real-estate giant Country Garden and state-backed China Vanke. Continued here � � � � � � What kind of legacy does Rishi Sunak want to leave behind? - The Economist    In British politics, last impressions count. Governments are remembered as much for how they leave office as for how they arrived. With a 20-point deficit in the polls, both Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, know that they are probably doomed. Running an outgoing government mixes immense responsibility with immense temptations. Cynical ministers merely make life harder for incoming governments; canny ones embed their preferences so their politics long outlives them. The choice is a simple one: to wreck or to ratchet. Messrs Sunak and Hunt have a range of examples to copy. After all, each tactic has a long history. Wrecking can come in many forms. Gordon Brown, a former Labour prime minister, mangled the tax system on his way out in 2010. Labour managed 13 years in power without increasing the highest rate of tax to 50%. The party introduced it a month before they left office. At the same time Mr Brown withdrew the personal allowance from high-earners, leaving those who earned over £100,000 with a 60% marginal rate. When the Tories reduced the rate, to a level still higher than it had been for most of New Labour’s term, the Conservatives were pilloried. The distortionary 60% rate remains. Spending plans are a favoured weapon of the wrecker. Ken Clarke, the Tory chancellor under Sir John Major, is hailed for leaving behind a “Rolls-Royce” economy in 1997. But he still laid a trap for Sir Tony Blair’s incoming Labour government in the form of absurdly tight spending plans, to which he cheerfully admitted later he had no intention of sticking. Labour walked into the trap, in the name of credibility. As a result cash-starved public services remained starved for half of Labour’s first term; when the cash did come, it arrived as a flood rather than a careful irrigation. It was an effective act of wrecking. Continued here

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