How Sam Altman Sidestepped Elon Musk to Win Over Donald Trump
The New York Times
After helping President Trump get elected, Elon Musk was poised to dominate the country’s A.I. policies. Then Mr. Altman sneaked into the White House.
At President Trump’s inauguration, Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, was relegated to the overflow room while other tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg took prime spots on the dais under the Capitol rotunda.
But days earlier, before flying into Washington, Mr. Altman was on the phone with Mr. Trump, preparing an announcement that would outflank Mr. Musk and put Mr. Altman’s company at the center of the new administration’s agenda for artificial intelligence.
On the 25-minute call, Mr. Altman appealed to Mr. Trump’s love of a big story and of a big deal. Mr. Altman told the president-elect that the tech industry would achieve artificial general intelligence — the hypothetical moment when technology matches human intelligence — during the Trump administration, according to three people familiar with the call. And to get there before competitors from China, OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank had completed a $100 billion deal to build data centers across the country.
The day after the inauguration, Mr. Altman stood behind Mr. Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House as Mr. Trump announced the deal, called Stargate, and described it as the “largest A.I. infrastructure project by far in history.”
Stargate had been in the works for months, but Mr. Altman and his partners timed the announcement to allow Mr. Trump to take credit for it in his first days in office.
“We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” Mr. Altman said in front of a gathering of reporters.
A group of scientists and law enforcement officials are pointing to the role moss can play to help solve crimes.
Blaming chatbots, they are joining an earlier push for better protections by parents who say social media contributed to their children’s deaths.
Partula snails all but vanished from Polynesia after the arrival of a carnivorous foreign snail. But a global alliance of zoos has worked to bring them back.
Though high rates of the disease persist among the nearby Indigenous communities, the Canadian government is weighing rules that may allow energy giants to release treated mining waste into the river system.
A new study offers clues as to how the insects survive flooding as they emerge from a hibernation-like phase every winter.
Scientists studied centuries-old bird feathers from an ancient tomb on the coast, and then traced the origins back to the Amazon.
Blaming chatbots, they are joining an earlier push for better protections by parents who say social media contributed to their children’s deaths.
The agency is proposing allowing other tastes for vapes, like mint, coffees, spices or tea, to appeal to adults. At the same time, illicit candy-flavored types aimed at teenagers have flooded the market.
Dr. Vinay Prasad drew criticism for overriding career scientists and rejecting drugs by companies seeking agency approval.
Researchers have devised a new tool for discerning between naturally occurring viral outbreaks and those resulting from lab accidents.
The artificial intelligence company filed two lawsuits against the Department of Defense, saying it was being punished on ideological grounds.
After outgrowing its original home, the National Museum of Mathematics has added new exhibits and an art gallery space in what was an empty storefront along the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan.
The strawberry guava, one of the world’s worst invasive species, hinders forest restoration on the island while feeding its famous endangered primates.