Alright, folks, pour yourself a stiff one. It’s Wednesday, pushing eight in the morning, and already the stench of bullshit is thick enough to choke a horse. Today’s special? OpenAI, the darlings of the AI world, have decided to grease the wheels of democracy with a whole lot more green. How much more, you ask? Try seven times more than last year. That’s right, seven. Like the number of whiskeys I’ll need to get through this without throwing my laptop out the window.
These are the same geniuses, mind you, who swore up and down they were all about “responsible AI.” Remember when Sam Altman, their fearless leader, was parading around like the second coming of Turing, preaching about the dangers of rogue algorithms and the need for ethical guardrails? Yeah, me neither. Turns out, “responsibility” is a lot like my ex-wife’s cooking: looks good on the brochure, tastes like burnt regret.
So what changed? Well, sometime between ChatGPT turning the world upside down and now, Altman and his crew realized that saving humanity from robot overlords doesn’t pay the bills. Or at least, it doesn’t pay as well as sucking up to Uncle Sam. See, these AI models need juice, and I’m not talking about the kind I get from my local dive bar. I’m talking about the kind that powers data centers bigger than most third-world countries.
And here’s the punchline: OpenAI is now pitching the feds on the idea that national security depends on them getting cheap, subsidized energy. Because nothing says “freedom” like a bunch of algorithms that can write your term papers and generate fake nudes of your high school crush. They want the government to build them 5-gigawatt data centers. Five gigawatts! That’s enough to power a whole damned city! My liver barely runs on 5 gigawatts, and these guys need it to teach a computer to write haikus?
What happened to all that talk about deepfakes and election meddling? Remember those bills they were supposedly pushing, the “NO FAKES Act” and the “Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act”? Yeah, those are deader than my hopes of getting a date with that bartender down at The Seventh Circle. Turns out, when you’re chasing those sweet, sweet government contracts, things like “ethics” and “public safety” tend to fall by the wayside.
They’ve even brought in some hired guns to help them navigate the swamp. Chris Lehane, some political operative, is now their head of global policy. They also hired some dude named Reginald Babin, who used to work for Chuck Schumer. I guess they figured if they couldn’t beat ’em, they’d buy ’em. And the twist? They also hired Chan Park, a former Microsoft lobbyist. Because if there’s one thing this world needs, it’s more Microsoft.
Now, I’m not saying AI is all bad. Hell, I use it to proofread my ramblings so you poor souls don’t have to suffer through even more typos than usual. But let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t about making the world a better place. This is about money, power, and control. It’s about turning AI into the next big cash cow, ethics be damned.
And who’s gonna pay for all this? You, me, and every other sucker who’s still paying off their student loans while these tech giants rake in billions. We’re gonna be subsidizing their energy bills so they can build Skynet 2.0. And when the robots do rise up and enslave us all, you can bet your bottom dollar that Sam Altman will be sipping margaritas on his private island, laughing all the way to the bank.
So, what’s the takeaway here? Well, for starters, never trust a tech company that claims to be saving the world. They’re usually just trying to save their own asses, and their bank accounts. Secondly, always be wary of politicians who get in bed with big business. It’s a recipe for disaster, or at least a massive hangover. And finally, always keep a bottle of whiskey handy. You never know when you’ll need to drown your sorrows, or celebrate the end of the world as we know it.
And, as always, stay wasted, my friends. It’s the only way to stay sane in this godforsaken world. Cheers.