Who Run the World? Billionaires!
These are the “faces” behind AI: Billionaires. Totally relatable, reliable, trustworthy people with everyone’s best interests at heart, right?
When we talk about AI, we often forget who’s holding the marionette strings. Lately, there’s been a lot of chatter about the ethics of recreating art in someone else’s style (Studio Ghibli being the latest victim), the lack of human experience in machine-generated content, and even the environmental toll of all this data production and storage. But one thing that really struck me while making this ad is how much we’re feeding into these systems and then trusting them to generate information or content while the people and corporations behind them are, well, kind of evil dudes.
Yes, it’s also important to talk about how AI reflects and amplifies bias—racist, misogynistic, homophobic, all of it. But for this post, let’s just focus on who is running the show. You can learn a lot by looking at the people at the helm.
Let’s start with the obvious one: Elon Musk. There’s barely a day that goes by without some new headline about the chaos he’s caused. One recent example—especially unsettling for South Africans—is his connection to AfriForum and Trump’s offer of refugee status to white Afrikaners. It’s a pattern with him. Everything Elon touches doesn’t just go bad; it turns toxic. Worse, it divides. He has this uncanny knack for polarisation, splitting countries, people, and communities in half. It’s a terrible, powerful gift.
Which brings us to the next guy: Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI (aka ChatGPT). About a decade ago, Sam and Elon were besties, tech-bro head honchos at an exciting new venture, Open AI. Sam gushed about Elon like a proud little brother. Fast forward to today, and they’re locked in a public feud and legal battle.
Skim a few headlines, and it starts to sound like a Black Mirror episode. Elon’s accusing Sam of transforming OpenAI from a humble non-profit into a profit-churning machine after cosying up to Microsoft. In typical Musk fashion, he’s now warning that AI is the greatest existential threat to humanity. And just when you think, “Wow, maybe Elon has a point for once?” Nope. Follow the money. OpenAI is valued at $80 billion. Sam accused Elon of “professional jealousy.” Elon responded by launching his own AI company, xAI.
It doesn’t take a genius to see what’s going on: two egos, two billionaires, and one giant, expensive toy. We can simply watch on as the puppeteers act out their show.
