“AI accelerationists” want superhuman intelligence to arrive ASAP

Amid all the stuff Elon Musk’s been up to in Washington, he found time to make a bid to buy OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. The offer was just under $100 billion. CEO Sam Altman not so politely declined. “I think he is probably just trying to slow us down,” Altman said.

It can feel, in these early days of 2025, like nothing can slow down artificial intelligence. And there’s a group of “techno-optimists” in Silicon Valley who are pushing harder on the…