Silicon Valley is all about the hard sell these days

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was at the center Silicon Valley The most obvious publicity push in recent memory on Monday night when appeared on Tonight show. In an anticipated interview with host Jimmy Fallon, Altman explained how ChatGPT It helped him relieve the anxiety that comes with being a new parent.

It was a very smart, if somewhat surprising, choice by Altman who kept his personal life out of the media spotlight. But Altman is a salesman, and a good salesman who understands the optics of a good TV. So he talked about being a father and being concerned that his son — who hadn’t crawled at six months — was developing slower than other babies (spoiler: he’s not). “I can’t imagine ever having figured out how to raise a newborn without using ChatGPT,” Altman told Fallon. “People have been doing it for a long time, no problem. Obviously it was possible, but I relied on it too much.”

As concerns about The future of artificial intelligence It kept escalating, and the subtext was almost too obvious: Technology can help people understand their children better. We should welcome it. The timing of that particular message was not accidental.

Recently, the tech establishment has launched a charm offensive Age verification laws It is sweeping the United States and the world, and the violent public reaction to artificial intelligence is intensifying.

Altman admitted this but did not go into detail during the interview. “One of the things I’m concerned about is the rate of change that’s happening in the world right now,” Altman said. “This is a three-year-old technology. The world has never adopted any other technology so quickly.” “Making sure we present this to the world in a responsible way, where people have time to adapt, provide input, and figure out how to do it — you can imagine we get that wrong.”

These concerns have only accelerated a focused campaign from the Valley to better control the narrative, which has included everything from TV ads to pop-ups to create better brand awareness, and explain why the virtues of artificial intelligence and social media, and all that they can do for people, outweigh their harms. If Silicon Valley were where it was “The era of difficult technology” It makes the selling process more difficult.

Ads are everywhere you are: streaming, cable, and social media. TikTok is great for Dad’s advice. ChatGPT can teach you how to do it right He practiceshe cooks Unforgettable dishesOr it can be organized An unforgettable road trip. Google wants you to do it “Demand more from your phone” thanks to AI features. Anthropy – which is what it claimed in an ad in September “There has never been a better time” For artificial intelligence, it is equal Host popups And selling commodity. Meta promises to be Your personal artificial intelligence Well, that’s it.