Why Did Google Fall Behind in the AI Race?

Kevin Roose says Google fell behind in the AI race because its leaders did not believe in artificial general intelligence the way Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Demis Hassabis do. Google had the resources, the talent, and the breakthroughs, and still lacked that belief. Halfway through his book, a story he expected to be about technology turned out to be about belief. For all the flaws, stumbles, and departures, OpenAI and Anthropic are the two most believing organizations, and that belief is why OpenAI is still in the lead or close to it.

Belief that the work could become artificial general intelligence is an essential ingredient. OpenAI still has very talented people. Roose has talked with the top scientists, and the company is aligned behind building superintelligence that will change the world.

Without that belief, or with only a halfway version of it, a lab does not make the bets that sound crazy. A year ago, when OpenAI was investing heavily in compute, Dario Amodei treated the size of the bet as crazy and asked why anyone would bet that much. Now everyone is making the same bet. OpenAI's advantage is that the bet came before it was obvious.