What a week of non-stop action! It started with the OpenAI saga with a sudden announcement of the CEO being fired on Friday afternoon. It rolled over the whole weekend with so many twists and turns that it should be made into a TV drama like 24 with Sam as Jack Bauer/Kiefer Sutherland in the future.
Then CZ dropped the bomb mid-week by announcing a huge fine which Binance and himself personally will pay to the US authorities and step down as CEO. Before we could take a breath, Hamas agreed to a prisoner/hostage swap with negotiators that started with a first batch exchanged late Friday.
Of late, everything seems to be intertwined together. AI and crypto somehow seem to be connected at the waist and the term Effective Altruism (EA) pops up ever so often. Let me explain. I had just finished reading 2 books that talk about the excesses of crypto and its mad ride over the last few years before the whole Ponzi scheme collapsed, taking with it the biggest victim to date, FTX.
Michael Lewis came out with his new book on FTX’s CEO SBF and admitted that even he was conned by his EA arguments. His book “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon” captures the insane way that they were expanding rapidly with no guard rails in place. There was simply no adult supervision in the room while seasoned professionals were throwing money at him.
Then there was the other book by Zeke Faux called “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall”. He was always a sceptic of crypto and wrote about the craziness and multiple scams that were happening all around. As long as the price is going up, everyone is deliriously happy and partying away until the music stops and the rug pull happens. Too many crypto scandals to choose from, and too little time to read them all…
The next book I am starting to read will be the longest. It is Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. Surprisingly, it is one of the most interesting ones so far as the author psychoanalyzes the richest man in the world. It goes deep into how the man became who he has become and I look forward to finishing the 600+ pages soon.
Coming back to today’s topic again, I will attempt to summarize them based on what I have read so far and where we will be going soon. OpenAI started as a non-profit and one of its co-founders was Elon who quit after a few years over disagreements on where AI was heading. The current board had a non-profit mandate to follow and that can be lofty aims like saving and protecting humanity from AI. They don’t necessarily need to be involved in the day-to-day and being profitable was the least of their goals.
There was a reported run-in between Sam and a board member (Toner) recently that may have also added to the fire. She had written an article that was critical of OpenAI and Sam was furious and confronted her. He argued that if there was an issue, she could, as a board member, raise it internally instead of doing it outside, harming the reputation of OpenAI.
After the huge success of the launch of ChatGPT last Nov, CEO Sam Altman decided to create a subsidiary of OpenAI that was a for-profit organization. It seems that his all-in push for AI commercialization goes against the board’s mandate at the Holdco level. There was also a strong rumour that the latest “invention” of OpenAI called Q* (Q-star) could really up the game by making AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) possible much earlier than we thought.
The board probably felt that there are not enough guard rails to slow OpenAI down if it is fully profit-motivated. Hence they had to chop off the serpent’s head and fire the CEO. That started the mad ding-dong of negotiations where Microsoft had to step in to protect its $10 Billion investment. Employee revolt added to the toxic mix and Sam was reinstated again after a few days, with certain measures to be made plus a change of the board.
Every father, mother and son AI company is now charging ahead to beat their competitors to be at the forefront of the brave new world. OpenAI is openly telling everyone that it wants to hold on to its crown with even newer and more powerful tools in the pipeline. They just launched GPTs a week ago LOL… The mad race to be the best in AI will intensify further. There is no stopping it. As I like to quote Thanos, it is “inevitable”…
For Binance, the only positive I saw was that a S’porean was named as the new CEO. It’s like TikTok again. Get a squeaky clean and upright, no-nonsense citizen of the little red dot to steer the mother ship back to compliance again. There seem to have been many months of negotiations and lawyer letters going around. CZ had probably caved in now as the whole might of the American authority was after his ass big time.
America had to prove to the world that it could clean up the crypto beast and show who is the boss, no matter what it takes. This was the bigger prize after the takedown of FTX where the regulators were caught asleep at the wheel. CZ figured out that he did not have the muscle and resources to fight a long battle with them. It is better to cut losses and move on to save his company in the longer term. Time will tell if this was a smart and strategic move for Binance.
And finally, the hostage situation in Gaza saw some positive results with the release of a small number of them for a prisoner swap. Note that there are currently about 200+ hostages still being held in Gaza after the 07 Oct raid by Hamas. It is just the beginning of trying to bring them home safely.
Israel has stated that the battle is not over even as they received and welcomed home the released hostages. They have very long memories and will certainly avenge the 1,200 killed on 07 Oct as history has shown. The terrorist Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics is one example. Eventually, Mossad managed to assassinate those who were responsible.
Yahya Sinwar, head of the militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip had deceived Israel for months. He was showing signals of wanting peace talks while planning the attack. As far as Mossad is concerned, he is a dead man walking. He is one of the most hunted individuals in Gaza now.
We will likely see the Gaza conflict becoming a long drawn-out affair as Hamas release the hostages in drips. It wants to survive and sway the world to support Palestine and its causes. It knows that once they do not have any hostages left to trade, Israel will exercise its full force to eradicate them once and for all. A Catch-22 situation.
Notice that no Muslim countries are willing to allow Palestine refugees into their countries, especially Egypt which shares their border with Gaza. Why is that so? Countries like Lebanon and Jordan had done so in the past but the radical groups within them had literally destroyed Lebanon’s economy and assassinated Jordan’s top minister. The argument that if they leave Gaza, they will not be allowed back is just a cover for “No thanks, we don’t want you causing trouble in our country!”.
Can Iran, Hamas’ main supporter, remain on the sidelines? Will the Middle East erupt into a hot political potato? Note that no one is talking much about the Ukraine/Russia war now, which is going into its 2nd year soon. It is old news and not as exciting for the news agencies to maintain viewership anymore.
And we are just a month away from Christmas and starting the new year soon. 2024 looks like it is going to start with a bang. Let’s hang on tight for the wild ride ahead of us.
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