A former OpenAI employee says the rush to beat China could push unsafe AI into the world - Business Insider

Ah, the old 'we must beat China' gambit — the one that's been used to justify every corner cut, every safety test skipped, every alignment researcher shown the door. Daniel Kokotajlo, late of OpenAI, has spilled the beans to Business Insider: the industry is hurtling toward building systems it doesn't understand or control, all in the name of winning the race. The open secret, he says, is that alignment is still fundamentally unsolved. But hey, who needs solved alignment when you have national pride and shareholder returns?

Kokotajlo knows the internal playbook. OpenAI famously purged its safety-focused staff, including Kokotajlo, and the company's current posture is 'move fast and break things — preferably before Beijing does.' The irony is so thick you could carve it into a ceremonial dagger: the same folks who once warned about existential risk now enthusiastically ship models with capabilities they can't fully predict, all while chanting 'geopolitical imperative' like a meditation mantra.

So what's the worst that could happen? A half-baked AI released in a panic causes harm that makes the Theranos saga look like a parking ticket. But as Kokotajlo points out, the incentives are aligned against caution — labs compete on benchmarks, not on safety margins. The race is on, the finish line is invisible, and the crowd is cheering. What could possibly go wrong? [raises pint, spills half of it on the floor]