It all began, as many things do, with Elon Musk. In the early 2010s he realized that AI was on a track to become perhaps the most powerful technology of all time. But he had deep suspicion that if it were to fall under the control of powerful profit-driven forces, humanity would suffer. Musk had been an early investor in DeepMind, the UK-based lab that was ahead of the pack in pursuing artificial general intelligence. After Google bought DeepMind in 2014, Musk cut ties with the research organization. He…
