Project Covalence

Our reading notes on Sam Altman

• ‘No room for debate’ over human control of AI, says Sam Altman

  The National’s editor Mina Al-Oraibi asks Altman about the future of AI at ADIPEC. Altman says people must retain control and that companies will have to show how they prevent harm as models gain capability. It is a public commitment readers can use to ask what a particular product lets a person inspect or stop.

• Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence

  John Collison asks about buying through a personal assistant instead of a merchant’s website. Altman says confidence in delivery and returns would still influence his choice of retailer even if a different interface placed the order. He describes his own shopping preference, which gives merchants a specific assumption to test with their customers.

• What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

  Altman puts a long-horizon plan alongside an execution cycle measured in weeks. In the same essay he cautions against using a well-run process to excuse a poor result. A weekly review can therefore ask whether the latest output changed the underlying bet while leaving enough time for a worthwhile bet to develop.