Narrative Nonfiction
Misalignment
The War Inside the Companies Building God
by C. Scott Lannon
They shared a house. They shared a mission. Then they built two $300 billion companies to destroy each other.
The story isn't over.
About the Book
They shared a house. Then they built two $300 billion companies to destroy each other.
In 2016, a physicist, a venture capitalist, and a charity evaluator argued on a couch in a rented San Francisco house about the right way to build artificial intelligence. One proposed selling AGI to the nuclear powers on the UN Security Council. Another considered it borderline treasonous and nearly quit on the spot.
A decade later, their personal grudges are shaping how humanity encounters AI.
The question was never whether the machine would be misaligned. The question was whether the people building it could align with each other.
About the Author
Christopher Scott Lannon writes fiction and nonfiction at the intersection of technology, power, and human consequence. With a background in enterprise software architecture and artificial intelligence, he brings an insider's understanding of complex systems and the people who build, control, and sometimes break them.
More at cscottlannon.com