The ‘Oppenheimer Moment’ That Looms Over Today’s AI Leaders

This year, hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent to scale AI systems in pursuit of superhuman capabilities. CEOs of leading AI companies, such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk, expect that within the next four years, their systems will be smart enough to do most cognitive work—think any job that can be done with just a laptop—as effectively as or better than humans.

Such an advance, leaders agree, would fundamentally transform society. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has