All posts tagged: Sam Altman

Luca Guadagnino Says He’s Not Surprised Amazon Dropped His OpenAI Film

Luca Guadagnino Says He’s Not Surprised Amazon Dropped His OpenAI Film

Published by Daniella Wilson

Luca Guadagnino says it wasn’t surprising Amazon MGM dropped his nearly-finished Sam Altman movie Artificial shortly after Amazon announced a $50 billion investment in OpenAI. “I can’t say much because we are right in the middle of this situation,” Guadagnino told Italian television, “[but] these are industrial policies that are certainly not new.” Speaking to news show Otto e mezzo on Italian network La7, Guadagnino cited an incident from 2003 when CBS canceled the broadcast of The Regans, a miniseries about President Ronald Regan and his family, starring Josh Brolin and Judy Davis, following a conservative backlash. (The series eventually aired on CBS’s sister network Showtime.) The Italian director could have mentioned a more recent example, Ali Abbasi’s 2024 Donald Trump movie The Apprentice, which premiered to acclaim in Cannes but was blackballed by studio and independent distributors, before finally landing with Tom Ortenberg’s indie outfit Briarcliff Entertainment. Neither of those, however, is a direct comp to the Artificial situation. Amazon pulled out of Guadagnino’s film shortly after announcing its $50 billion strategic partnership with …

The White House is asking OpenAI to slow roll the release of its new model over safety concerns

The White House is asking OpenAI to slow roll the release of its new model over safety concerns

Published by skeptic

OpenAI’s release of its newest model, GPT 5.6, reportedly won’t be like its previous releases. Instead of distributing it to the public, the company plans to share it only with a select group of close partners because the Trump administration told it to, reports The Information. At a meeting this week, CEO Sam Altman reportedly told staff that the government would be “approving access customer by customer” during a preview period. Altman reportedly added that if the limited release goes well, OpenAI hopes to follow with a general, broader release a “couple of weeks later.” In other words, the Trump administration appears to be pressuring OpenAI to do what Anthropic is already voluntarily doing: keeping its most powerful AI models under wraps. According to The Information, OpenAI’s new model is not only being reviewed by the administration, but its staffers also “worked closely” with the government on the upcoming release. The agencies that reportedly asked for a limited release were the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. …

Why Amazon Dropped Its OpenAI Movie, Data Center Workers Fight Back, and Meta Leaks Employee Data

Why Amazon Dropped Its OpenAI Movie, Data Center Workers Fight Back, and Meta Leaks Employee Data

Published by skeptic

Leah Feiger: Yeah. Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, they introduced the Data Center Moratorium Act, which would halt the construction of new AI data centers until there were actual national safeguards. This sounds, in so many ways, like a very baked for left wing issue, but shockingly, this is pretty bipartisan. There are folks from all sides of the aisle getting involved because their constituents are reaching out and going, “What are you doing in my name? What are you doing in my backyard? How is this benefiting me? How is this hurting me?” So I think the thing that I’ve been most shocked by is the bipartisanship of this. Zoë Schiffer: It’s interesting because I feel like, and this is purely my speculation, but just based on how OpenAI talked about data centers, really came out in front during the first day of the Trump administration, kind of championing big data center build out projects. I was like, I’m reading Chris Lehane, the company’s chief global affairs officer, previously very high …

Luca Guadagnino Says He’s Not Surprised Amazon Dropped His OpenAI Film

Netflix, Focus Pass on OpenAI-Sam Altman Movie Dropped by Amazon

Published by Daniella Wilson

Both Netflix and Focus Features have passed on acquiring Luca Guadagnino‘s Artificial movie after the nearly-completed film was abruptly dropped by Amazon MGM Studios, sources have confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. Meanwhile, A24 is said to have screened the film but its standing in the race to acquire the Sam Altman–OpenAI comedic drama remains unclear. Focus, Netflix and A24 could not be reached for comment. Additionally, fellow indies Mubi and Neon have not yet responded to THR‘s requests for comment following a report they were pursuing the film. Amazon MGM Studios confirmed Friday that it would not be releasing the movie, the casting for which — Andrew Garfield as Altman and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk — has already made headlines. “We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker — not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” a spokesperson for Amazon told THR. “We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the …

Trump heads to G7 summit in France as world awaits Iran deal

Trump heads to G7 summit in France as world awaits Iran deal

Published by Sam Flores

President Donald Trump is set to head to France for the annual summit of the Group of Seven nations, with the U.S. and Iran yet to finalize an anticipated deal to end the Middle East war that has stirred political and economic strife around the world. The three-day G7 summit, which starts Monday, is taking place in Évian-les-Bains, on France’s eastern border with Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva. Trump said he will depart for the summit “immediately” after attending a mixed-martial arts fight that is set to take place Sunday evening on the White House’s South Lawn. The UFC match coincides with Trump’s 80th birthday. As France began its turn leading the G7 in January, President Emmanuel Macron expressed a desire for the group to prioritize reducing inequality and fostering multilateralism while addressing inflamed trade and geopolitical tensions. Those priorities may be counter to Trump’s America First agenda, under which he’s imposed tariffs, gone after other world leaders directly and on social media and started a war. And inequality in the U.S. is …

The Trump administration might take an equity stake in OpenAI

The Trump administration might take an equity stake in OpenAI

Published by skeptic

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he’s spoken to AI companies about striking deals “where the American people can benefit from the success of AI.” Trump does not seem to have mentioned specific companies in his comments, but OpenAI is a likely candidate, especially after CNBC reported that the Trump administration has indeed been discussing an equity stake with the AI company. CNBC said some of that equity could be used to seed a “Public Wealth Fund” recently proposed by OpenAI. As outlined by the company, proceeds from the fund “could be distributed directly to citizens, allowing more people to participate directly in the upside of AI-driven growth, regardless of their starting wealth or access to capital.” According to Bloomberg, when reporters on Air Force One asked Trump about the idea, he replied that he’s been talking to AI executives about “concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies.” Bloomberg also reports that CEO Sam Altman has been discussing the idea …

Founders Fund launches game show starring Sam Altman, Palmer Luckey, and other tech elites

Founders Fund launches game show starring Sam Altman, Palmer Luckey, and other tech elites

Published by skeptic

Have you ever had the desire to see Sam Altman and Palmer Luckey square off over a moderately suspenseful card game? If so, you are in luck. Silicon Valley’s leaders are rushing to embrace the power of media for the purposes of marketing and political capital. Now, in a sign of the times, Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, has launched its own game show. “MAFIA the GAME,” will apparently be an ongoing thing, where prominent tech luminaries get together and face off over a game of cards (the show is named after the party-game favorite). The spectacle is moderated by Pirate Wires editor Mike Solana (who is also the chief marketing officer at Founders Fund). The debut episode includes a who’s who of players — Sam Altman; Palmer Luckey; Bryan Johnson, the famed biohacker who will (according to him) live forever; and Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of encrypted chat app Signal. “I’m so f*cking bored with VC content,” Solana told Newcomer, which originally reported the show’s existence. “There has to …

Florida sues OpenAI, Sam Altman, in first-of-its-kind lawsuit over violent incidents

Florida sues OpenAI, Sam Altman, in first-of-its-kind lawsuit over violent incidents

Published by skeptic

OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, were sued by the Florida attorney general on Monday, in a first-of-its-kind state litigation effort over ChatGPT’s alleged links to a number of violent incidents. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of looking the other way on safety concerns as it has sought to prioritize winning “the AI arms race and amass large fortunes.” “Today, we announced the first-in-the-nation state-led lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. “OpenAI and Altman ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians.” “Because of Defendants’ misrepresentations about ChatGPT and their careless introduction of ChatGPT to Florida and the world, mass shooters have been aided and abetted in deadly rampages, vulnerable people have been encouraged into suicide, professionals have suffered public humiliation, users have lost critical thinking skills, and minors have become addicted to a tool that feigns human compassion to collect their data with no parental oversight,” the 83-page lawsuit claims. The Florida attorney general’s office launched …

Can OpenAI’s ‘Master of Disaster’ Fix AI’s Reputation Crisis?

Can OpenAI’s ‘Master of Disaster’ Fix AI’s Reputation Crisis?

Published by skeptic

Three months ago, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman told me his concerns about a mounting public relations crisis facing artificial intelligence companies: Despite the popularity of tools like ChatGPT, an increasingly large share of the population said they viewed AI negatively. Since then, the backlash has only intensified. College commencement speakers are now getting booed for talking about AI in optimistic terms. Last month, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s San Francisco home and wrote a manifesto advocating for crimes against AI executives. No one has more to lose from this reputation crisis than OpenAI. The person tasked with trying to fix it is Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief of global affairs and a veteran political operative. I sat down with him this week to discuss what I’d argue are his two biggest challenges yet: convincing the world to embrace OpenAI’s technology, while at the same time persuading lawmakers to adopt regulations that won’t hamper the company’s growth. Lehane views these goals as one in the same. “When I was in the White …