The line to enter the 985-seat basement auditorium at University College London where OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman is about to speak stretches out the door, snakes up several flights of stairs, carries on into the street, and then meanders most of the way down a city block. It inches forward, past a half-dozen young men holding signs calling for OpenAI to abandon efforts to develop artificial general intelligence—or A.I. systems that are as capable as humans at most cognitive tasks. One protester, speaking into a megaphone, accuses Altman of having a Messiah complex and risking the destruction of humanity for the sake of his ego.
Messiah might be taking it a bit far. But inside the hall, Altman received a rock star reception. After his talk, he was mobbed by admirers, asking him to pose for selfies and soliciting advice on the best way for a startup to build a “moat.” “Is this normal?” one incredulous reporter asks an OpenAI press handler as we stand in the tight scrum around Altman. “It’s been like this pretty much everywhere we’ve been on this trip,” the spokesperson says.
