David Remnick

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

In February, a feud erupted between one of the leading AI companies, Anthropic, and the U.S.

government.

In short, Anthropic was providing artificial intelligence capability to the Pentagon,

But Anthropic wouldn't allow its clawed system to launch autonomous weapons or to be used in mass surveillance.

In response, the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon called Anthropic a national security risk.

Anthropic turned around and sued.

And into the breach stepped Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and he swiftly made a deal with the Pentagon and replaced Anthropic.

This is the same CEO who said three years ago to Congress that he feared what could happen if AI was deployed incorrectly.

How did Sam Altman, who's now 40 years old, change his mind after all this time on such a fundamental issue?

I put that question to Andrew Moranson, Ronan Farrow, who have jointly published a deep investigation of Sam Altman and his history at OpenAI.

We'll continue our conversation now.

Andrew, what did Sam Altman say to his own employees about this military contract versus what he said to the government?

What are the financial stakes for Sam Altman running?

And God knows what that means.

Okay, I read that.

Time out.

We put it in quotes.