Tech giants need to stop racing to build AI gods with uncertain benefits

We have ChatGPT because Sam Altman wanted to build a god.

For all the buzz, the chatbot is only a prototype along the way to a loftier goal of AGI, or “artificial general intelligence” that surpasses the cognitive abilities of humans. When Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, he made it the non-profit’s goal. Five years earlier, Demis Hassabis co-founded DeepMind Technologies Ltd., now Google’s core AI division, with the same AGI objective.