Supremacy
WINNER OF THE 2024 FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
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4.8 • 6 Ratings
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
***WINNER OF THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024***
'Astonishing . . . [Olson has] exclusive access to a network of high-ranking sources' - Financial Times
'A riveting tale . . . Olson is a compelling storyteller' - New Scientist
'A compelling warning' - The Times
The gripping, award-winning story of the technology that's transforming our lives.
In November 2022, the world changed. Within weeks of ChatGPT being released, it was clear that our lives and our careers would never be the same again. From award-winning journalist Parmy Olson, Supremacy is the astonishing story of the race to exploit generative AI. It unfolds between two titans of Silicon Valley, Microsoft and Google, as they rush to embrace OpenAI and DeepMind, the two leading AI companies, and harness them for limitless profit.
Featuring a cast of larger-than-life characters, including Elon Musk, Demis Hassabis, Sam Altman, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel, Supremacy is a story of ambition, exploitation and secrecy. It tells of relentless technological progress and the greatest invention in human history. And with the constant threat of competition, the dangers of this new technology are repeatedly brushed aside…
'A clear and compelling read about one of the most consequential races in the world' - Madhumita Murgia, bestselling author of Code Dependent and AI Editor for The Financial Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This animated report from Olson (We Are Anonymous), a technology columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, recounts the competition between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis to bring artificial intelligence software to market. She explains how Altman's belief that it was in humanity's best interest for OpenAI to create the technology as soon as possible led him to abandon the organization's nonprofit status so it could partner with and receive funding from Microsoft. Hassabis followed a similar trajectory, establishing DeepMind in 2010 out of a desire to develop AI capable of answering "where humans had come from and what their purpose was" before he sold the company to Google to secure long-term funding. Though Olson frames the narrative as a clash of titans, there's surprisingly little direct conflict between Altman and Hassabis, aside from a tense 2020 dinner during which Hassabis accused Altman of enabling bad actors by releasing GPT-3 (the precursor to ChatGPT) to the public. Nonetheless, Olson's punchy prose and eye for detail brings her subjects to vivid life (she writes that Altman is "bright as any geek, charismatic as any jock"). Though somewhat lacking in drama, this attests to how quickly humanitarian ideals devolve into brazen profit-seeking in Silicon Valley.
