Supremacy

Longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award 2024, "Supremacy" by award-winning journalist Parmy Olson tells the astonishing, untold story behind the scenes of the battle between two AI companies, their efforts to harness their technology for the good of humanity, and the dangerous direction they are now heading.

"They also rejected his offer, not realizing how much it displeased the sensitive Musk when people said no. Soon, however, Hassabis received another email. This time it was from Google."

When ChatGPT was released, the world changed overnight. As we all experimented with the new tool, a very real danger quickly emerged: untested automations could secretly undermine our way of life, siphon value from our economy, replace highly skilled creative jobs, and enable a new, frightening era of misinformation.

It was never meant to end this way. The founders of the two companies behind the world's most advanced AIs – OpenAI (ChatGPT) and DeepMind (Bard) – began their journeys with the goal of solving humanity's greatest problems. However, they could not develop their technologies without significant funding – money that Microsoft and Google were eager to provide, in exchange for the most powerful seats at the table.

With a cast of larger-than-life characters, including Elon Musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel, "Supremacy" is a tale of manipulation, exploitation, secrecy, and relentless, unyielding human progress – progress that will continue to affect us all for many years to come.