Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has recently been flexing his humanitarian credentials by begging for his own company's products to be regulated by the US government.
Speaking to a Senate judiciary committee whilst sporting his best "concerned android" face, Altman said: "We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models." He even offered to help the government regulate his new product.
Wow! What a great guy, offering to clip his own company's wings for the greater good. It isn't often that big business goes hand in hand with a deep compassion towards humanity, but this Silicon Valley corporate drone has somehow managed to maintain concern for his fellow human beings whilst simultaneously spending all of his time with machines.
But wait--is there something else at play here? This all seems a bit fishy to me.
Why would an industry ask to be regulated? Could there be anything in it for them?
Regulations are usually characterized as pesky government interventions that restrict business. A victory for the public over greedy capitalists.
But in reality the division between corporations and the US government is only a facade. The government is merely an arm of the corporate state.
In the Triumph of Conservatism (1962), Gabriel Kolko wrote that the regulatory drives of the Progressive Era (1896-1917) were initiated by the business leaders, not by politicians.
Kolko referenced the meatpacking industry, which became the subject of numerous regulations in the early 20th century, and noted that only the biggest players in the industry had the financial clout to abide by the new laws.
Later, in 1971, George Stigler wrote "The Theory of Economic Regulation." This work destroyed the idea that regulations arose solely to advance the public interest by correcting market failures.
Stigler, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982, said that regulations were weapons exploited by firms to create barriers to competition.
Recently, the cherubic Altman threatened to pull Open AI out of the European Union because regulators there had the audacity to start drafting their own regulations for his industry.
In the United States, however, where fears of a feral AI marketplace are trumpeted daily by the media and former AI executives, Altman is likely to find willing co-conspirators.
Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy even implored Altman during one hearing: "Tell us what rules to implement."
That must have been music to Altman's ears.
