The lights dims when five actors took their places around a table on a brief stage in an art gallery of New York City to theater the night. Wine and water flowed through the intimate space as the home – stuffed with media – to look at the premiere of “Doomers”, Matthew Gasda's latest piece, is loosely based on Sam Altman's outer shit as a CEO of Openai in November 2023.
The piece fictionalizes events that took place in response to Openas co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, as he had released Altman-a decision that the board had concerned about concerns that the CEO had the safety of AI and the interference on improper, toxic behavior. Despite the apparent careful research that flows into Gasda's presentation of tonight, the playwright told Techcrunch that his goal was to not be created, but to make use of this attitude as a microcosm for the larger philosophical questions of AI security and orientation.
People have had myth and traditions for 1000’s of years through the subsequent great inventions of mankind and the risks to pursue them. As Prometheus, the fireplace steals and Oppenheimer divides the atom, humanity cannot resist the temptation of its own inventions. With Gasda's piece, the humanities are actually burdening the philosophical debate about quick technological innovations – the technology and its barons into the zeitgeist.
“The humanities, the humanities, we are able to say something about it,” Gasda told Techcrunch. “We could also be financially and toothless technologically toothless, but we aren’t toothless, as we now have the suitable to represent this world in addition to everyone else.”
In Gasda's game, the corporate is known as Mindmesh and the selfish, childish, dirty CEO is known as Seth.
The first act takes place in Seth's “war space”, while he and the one who’s closest to him discuss the benefits of the order of the board of directors what their next steps ought to be and whether the CEO has the suitable, such a technology of the To follow society. The second act takes place in Mindmesh's board of directors and descriptions the varied fears amongst its members, including that of the newly covered Seth, the retaliation could reply to those that have betrayed him and that “we’re worn out by a competitor species”.
The central tension of the piece today plays on the world stage – the existential threat of AI in comparison with the existential promise.
“I used to be released because I created miracles”
Gasda said he wrote 35 drafts of this piece, which he previewed in August for the early audience. After further excursions to San Francisco and lots of of Celsius, he arrived with the “Doomers” version, which has its premiere this weekend until February and can be shown in San Francisco in March.
Gasda, who is thought to jot down and guide “Dimes Square” and “Zoomers”, told us that he wanted to grasp the archetypes of the character and psychology of a bunch of people that don’t necessarily become involved in self -reflection.
The result’s a line-up of 10, half of that are based on real people reminiscent of the Openai CEO Sam Altman, the previous chief technologist Mira Murati, and the co-founder and president Greg Brockman. Murati worked as an interim CEO throughout the Executive Shakeup. She left the corporate in September 2024 to found her own company.
Other characters are based on Helen Toner and Adam d'Angelo, two former board members who voted Altman. And even Eliezer Yudkowsky, a researcher who demanded before the Openai ended the world.
Gasda said that Seth, who is predicated on Altman, is maybe the true form in his representation, but he also left space for fictional representations of characters who’re the long run of AI, a brand new one Gen Z-millionaires founders and a Stanford lawyer.
“I desired to extract enough feeling of loyalty and feeling of reality in an effort to make the piece difficult and to make the characters thus far that it doesn’t turn off any individuals who actually know what happens,” said Gasda and noticed that Altman received a duplicate of the piece before it was premiered.
The questions that the occupation debate is relevant: should the AI ​​development be accelerated in order that “we” can gain; If its development is slowed all the way down to enable higher security and orientation; Should it’s closed overall to guard the human race?
Through these debates, we see the archetypes of each character fulfilled: If it’s a alternative between profit and morality, Seth, selects the figure based on Atlman.
He loudly explains that the board has released him “due to miracles” and argues that the orientation can be a “bad use of a sacred resource”. It is human, he says, to offer excellent performance, and adds that Mindmesh is the “immune system” of the world, a benevolent agi that may protect us when the “bad” agi is raptured.
“The only thing to do is to be written and overturned,” says Seth. Characters which might be based on Mira Murati and Greg Brockman largely support Seth, even when he insults them, and argue for a vision of an AI utopia within the technology and opens up illness and opens up interplanetary space travel. To that of the safety ethicist, Alina, says: “You let it sound like a genius in a bottle.”
Gasda sprays dry humor in “Doomers” – and makes the mood of an otherwise tense topic easier. He also introduces humor by capturing nuances of the culture of Silicon Valley. Polycules and ketamine have been mentioned greater than once, and at one point the characters take mushrooms. There are indications of Waymo robotaxis, and in some unspecified time in the future one character realizes: “I do know that drinking is a low status, but I actually need some drink” with regard to the Cali-Sober trend that overtakes the bay.
Security questions remain
The events shown on this piece took place almost 15 months ago, and the conversation about AI has already modified when the race for the rule of security exceeded.
Altman immediately returned to power after Openai engineers threatened to stop massively if it was not set again. A brand new board that deals with Openai in a non -profit structure has since consolidated under the CEO. Sutskever and Jan Leike, the co-lead within the now dissolved Superalignment team from Openaai, have considered. Other security -oriented researchers who Considered concerns Ai Labs have also left.
Openai didn't hurt that.
According to reports, the corporate reports a round of $ 40 billion, which might appreciate it at 300 billion US dollars, while President Donald Trump guarantees to guard AI as latest betting against China, and enter latest competitors reminiscent of Deepseek Ring. In short, the AI ​​innovation accelerates and doesn’t decelerate, similar to Seth's character wanted. The query that everybody expects to the reply is whether or not that is a superb thing or not.
“It is ugly to construct God,” says Alina, the ethicist within the play. “Because we’re so ugly and it is predicated on us.”
