Karen Hao traces OpenAI’s shift in MIT Technology Review

Karen Hao traces OpenAI’s shift in MIT Technology Review

On May 19, 2025, Karen Hao recounts in MIT Technology Review how reporting on OpenAI began with a three-day visit in 2019 and grew into a profile of a lab changing its structure, funding and approach to openness. Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever argued that building artificial general intelligence (AGI)—which OpenAI defined as software matching or exceeding human performance on most economically valuable tasks—could help solve complex problems and distribute economic benefits. Hao’s account contrasts those promises with their difficulty giving concrete examples of how AGI would help, address environmental costs or share its gains. Brockman said falling behind could undermine OpenAI’s mission; Hao argues that the need to lead put pressure on research and encouraged heavy use of compute and data, with environmental and consent costs. Her profile concluded that OpenAI’s public commitments to transparency and collaboration diverged from its operations. An email from Sam Altman, as Hao recounts it, proposed responding through public messaging rather than changes to internal practices. The excerpt leaves open how OpenAI would distribute benefits or make its stated commitments concrete.

Publication: 3b7828c1-c6e4-e90f-defc-ae8412a17818

attribution — pass: The reading attributes the account to Karen Hao in MIT Technology Review and attributes statements to Brockman, Sutskever and Altman as Hao recounts them. This is one piece, a book excerpt with an editor's introduction. The reading could optionally name Empire of AI, but the attribution is not wrong.

From the book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, by Karen Hao

summary — pass: The reading clearly identifies the actors and defines AGI using OpenAI's definition. It conveys Hao's central argument that the need to lead drove OpenAI's conduct, and it states her profile's conclusion and Altman's messaging response. A lay reader can follow it. It leaves out that OpenAI stopped speaking to Hao for three years, but that omission does not distort the meaning.

date — pass: May 19, 2025 matches the UTC day of originalPublished. The 2019 visit and 2020 profile dates match the source. The sidebar items on the retrieved page, such as the AlphaGo ten-years piece, appear to be later additions. The reading neither uses nor relies on them. The reading uses no hindsight framing. The page is a publisher page, not an archive copy.

support — uncertain: The four claims match their excerpts. However, the summary says Brockman and Sutskever had difficulty giving concrete examples of how AGI would help. In the source, Brockman did offer examples: climate change, medicine, and a friend's rare disorder. What Hao says she failed to get was concrete detail on what they were building, and Sutskever gave no examples of AGI offsetting environmental costs. The smallest repair is to say they struggled to give concrete details of what they were building, or of how AGI would offset environmental costs.

He offered two examples that had become dogma among AGI believers. Climate change.

media — pass: No media was selected, and no verified candidates were supplied, so this is appropriate.