Open AI: Tech Empire or Quasi-Religious Movement?

In December 2015, OpenAI announced itself to the world with a bold promise: to "advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole." Nearly a decade later, the company that launched ChatGPT has become one of Silicon Valley's most valuable entities, worth an estimated $400 billion. But has OpenAI built a business empire, cultivated a religious movement, or somehow managed to do both?

This question sits at the heart of tech journalist Karen Hao's new book "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI," which examines how the company transformed from a research-focused nonprofit into a global AI powerhouse. Through interviews with approximately 260 people, Hao presents a complex portrait of CEO Sam Altman and the ideological forces that have shaped artificial intelligence development.

The Making of a Tech Empire

OpenAI's evolution mirrors the classic Silicon Valley narrative of mission drift. Founded as a nonprofit in 2015 by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, among others, the company positioned itself as a counterweight to for-profit AI development. The founding vision emphasized open collaboration, with patents and research made publicly available.

That model didn't last. Within 18 months, according to Hao's reporting, OpenAI's leadership concluded they needed massive scale to compete—what they called a "scale-at-all-costs approach." The bottleneck was capital, and Altman, described by Paul Graham as someone who could become "king" if dropped "on an island of cannibals," proved exceptionally skilled at fundraising.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): A theoretical form of AI that would match or exceed human cognitive abilities across all domains, representing what many researchers consider the ultimate goal of AI development.

Capped Profit Structure: OpenAI's hybrid model combining nonprofit governance with a for-profit subsidiary, designed to attract investment while maintaining mission-focused oversight.

The company created a novel "capped profit" structure, nesting a for-profit arm within the nonprofit to attract the billions needed for advanced AI research. They stopped sharing open-source code and began monetizing their technology through partnerships, most notably with Microsoft. This transformation accelerated after ChatGPT's launch in late 2022, which sparked what Hao describes as an industry-wide AI arms race.

Today, OpenAI operates more like a traditional tech giant than its nonprofit origins might suggest. Altman recently accompanied President Trump on diplomatic missions to Saudi Arabia, helping negotiate AI development deals worth potentially hundreds of billions of dollars. The company has shifted from its original globalist rhetoric to explicitly promoting "American-led AI" over Chinese alternatives.

The Quasi-Religious Dimensions

Perhaps more intriguing than OpenAI's corporate evolution is what Hao characterizes as its quasi-religious culture. She identifies two competing factions within what she calls "the artificial general intelligence religion"—believers who see AGI as either humanity's salvation or its potential destruction.

The "boomers" believe AGI will usher in a technological utopia, solving humanity's greatest challenges. The "doomers" fear AGI could pose an existential threat to human civilization. Despite their opposing views, both factions reach similar conclusions: that AGI development is too important to be left to democratic processes and must be tightly controlled by those who understand its implications.

AGI Alignment: The challenge of ensuring advanced AI systems pursue goals compatible with human values and don't cause unintended harm as they become more capable.

This ideological framework has influenced OpenAI's approach to transparency and public engagement. The company initially withheld its GPT-2 model, citing safety concerns, while simultaneously using the decision as a marketing tool to demonstrate the technology's supposed power. Such moves reflect the tension between the company's stated commitment to broad benefit and its belief that careful control is necessary.

Altman himself appears to embody this paradox. Hao quotes him saying, "Successful people create companies, more successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions." Yet those who have worked closely with him report uncertainty about his true beliefs regarding AGI's potential benefits or risks.

The Global Impact Question

OpenAI's transformation raises broader questions about how AI development affects communities worldwide. Hao's research documents significant human costs in AI training, including workers in Kenya paid roughly $2 per hour to filter disturbing content from training data, often suffering psychological trauma in the process.

The company's global infrastructure needs have also created tensions. Data centers require enormous amounts of fresh water for cooling, leading to conflicts in drought-affected regions like Chile and Uruguay where communities compete with tech companies for limited water resources.

AI Training Labor: The largely invisible workforce, often in developing countries, that performs tasks like content moderation, data labeling, and quality control necessary for AI model development.

These patterns reflect what Hao characterizes as a new form of digital colonialism, where AI companies extract resources and labor from developing regions while concentrating profits and decision-making power in Silicon Valley. The disconnect between OpenAI's stated mission to benefit all humanity and its practical impact on global communities highlights the complexity of governing transformative technologies.

The Leadership Enigma

Central to understanding OpenAI is deciphering Sam Altman himself. Multiple biographical accounts, including Keach Hagey's "The Optimist," paint him as a brilliant strategist capable of mobilizing extraordinary resources toward ambitious goals. His ability to recruit talent and capital has been crucial to OpenAI's success.

Yet Altman remains something of an enigma. Hao reports that even long-time colleagues struggle to determine his genuine beliefs about AI's future impact. He appears to tell different audiences what they want to hear, positioning himself as either cautiously optimistic or appropriately concerned depending on the context.

This adaptability extends to policy positions. While early OpenAI rhetoric emphasized global cooperation and technology sharing, recent white papers submitted to the Trump administration advocate for explicitly using AI to maintain American geopolitical dominance. The shift suggests a leader who adjusts ideological positions based on strategic considerations rather than fixed principles.

The Democratic Governance Challenge

OpenAI's story illuminates broader challenges in governing transformative technologies. The company's leadership believes AGI development is too consequential to be subject to normal democratic oversight, yet their decision-making affects billions of people worldwide.

Recent polling suggests over 75% of Americans want AI development slowed to ensure safety and ethical considerations, but companies like OpenAI argue that competitive pressures make such restraint impossible. This creates a tension between public preferences and industry imperatives that democratic institutions struggle to resolve.

Superintelligence: Hypothetical AI that would far exceed human cognitive abilities, which OpenAI's leadership believes could emerge in the coming decade with unprecedented consequences for civilization.

The company's governance has also faced internal challenges. The brief removal of Altman by OpenAI's board in late 2023, followed by his rapid reinstatement amid employee and investor pressure, highlighted tensions between the nonprofit board's oversight role and commercial interests.

Assessing the Empire vs. Religion Question

So is OpenAI building an empire or fostering a religion? The evidence suggests elements of both. The company has certainly accumulated imperial characteristics—vast resources, global influence, and the ability to reshape entire industries. Its partnerships with governments and extraction of value from global labor markets mirror historical patterns of imperial expansion.

Simultaneously, the quasi-religious aspects are undeniable. The company's culture revolves around belief in AGI's transformative potential, uses spiritual language to describe its mission, and maintains that its work serves a higher purpose transcending normal business considerations.

Perhaps most significantly, these characteristics reinforce each other. The religious conviction that AGI represents humanity's future justifies the imperial accumulation of resources and power needed to develop it. The scale of resources required validates the belief that this work is uniquely important.

This dynamic raises fundamental questions about democratic governance of transformative technologies. When companies believe they're serving destiny rather than markets, traditional accountability mechanisms may prove inadequate.

The Bottom Line: OpenAI's transformation from nonprofit research lab to global AI powerhouse reflects broader tensions in how democratic societies govern transformative technologies. Whether characterized as empire or religion, the company's evolution highlights the need for new frameworks to balance innovation with accountability.

The questions raised by OpenAI's story—Who should control advanced AI? How do we ensure broad benefit while maintaining competitive advantage? What role should public input play in shaping humanity's technological future?—will likely define the next decade of AI governance.

Understanding these dynamics is crucial for businesses navigating the AI revolution. At Winsome Marketing, we help companies develop strategies that leverage AI capabilities while maintaining ethical standards and stakeholder trust in an increasingly complex technological landscape.