If “AI” was really half of what it was cracked up to be, here’s how I would imagine it would have gone down:
AI Co: “Hello everyone. We would like to present our AI code writer. “AI, please write the code behind Google’s search engine.”
AI: “Here ya go: <splort>”
Google: “That’s very impressive.”
AI Co: “AI, please fix all the bugs in Google Voice that make it run slow as dog feces.”
AI: “Done. <splort>”.
Google: “Ok, we will give you $50B right now for 100% of everything you own. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”
6 months later: “In today’s news, Google Inc. has just released it’s 30th major product. The industry is shocked and suspects perhaps Google has figured out some type of AI program to write code. Google has announced it has purchased AI Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Google has also announced it is laying off 60% of its staff worldwide. Only CEOs and marketing personnel remain.”
In reality, Sam Altman appears to be a man who has created a machine that allegedly points out massive gold deposits. But rather than mining gold, he insists on selling machines that find gold mines.
This is why they disguised it as philanthropy early on. They suspected it would look silly if they granted everyone access to unlimited intelligence or whatever. They realized later on that people are much more stupid than initially thought so they dropped the act and became openly profit oriented in no time. It‘s crazy what you can get away with if you‘re bold enough.