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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman\u2019s public persona depends on a carefully balanced contradiction. Though he presents himself as the thoughtful steward<\/a> of a dangerous technology, the AI luminary has aggressively pursued relationships with top lawmakers<\/a> while racing rival tech moguls to the top of the market, consequences<\/a> be damned<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the ways he maintains this shtick is by acknowledging painful truths he has no plan of acting on.<\/p>\n Speaking at the BlackRock Infrastructure Summit this week, Altman mused on AI\u2019s public relations crisis<\/a>, admitting that the tech is upending the dynamic between capital and labor.<\/p>\n \u201cData centers are getting blamed for electricity prices hikes. Almost every company that does layoffs is blaming AI, whether or not it really is about AI,\u201d Altman said, per Fortune<\/a>, alluding to \u201cAI washing\u201d in which firms use the tech as cover for more ordinary market pressures<\/a> driving workforce reductions. Whatever the cause, he granted that AI is letting \u201ccapital\u201d \u2014 businesses owners \u2014 radically erode worker power<\/a> as it takes us from an economy of scarcity to one of \u201cabundance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s, like, a real change to how capitalism has worked,\u201d Altman said, acknowledging that the economic system has always relied on a delicate equilibrium between businesses owners and workers (though how balanced the two forces have actually been is certainly up for debate<\/a>.) \u201cBut if it\u2019s hard in many of our current jobs to outwork a GPU, then that changes. If there was an easy consensus answer, we\u2019d have done it by now, so I don\u2019t think anyone knows what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether tactical or sincere, Altman\u2019s observation is itself a clever bit of AI-washing. By stating the obvious \u2014 AI serves the ruling class in undermining worker power \u2014 Altman both frames the outcome as inevitable and washes his hands of responsibility.<\/p>\n Case in point: OpenAI under Altman has made zero commitment to worker welfare; if anything, it\u2019s done the opposite<\/a>. There\u2019s no support for sectoral bargaining<\/a> in the tech industry, let alone any other industry, no advocacy for cost of living reductions that would help the working class survive the AI onslaught<\/a>, and certainly no worker representation within OpenAI\u2019s governance structure itself.<\/p>\n Altman\u2019s concern, in other words, is purely cosmetic. He drives this home later in the BlackRock appearance, declaring that the ultimate goal is to make AI \u201ctoo cheap to meter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to flood the world with intelligence,\u201d Altman said, and \u201cwe want people to just use it for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n But without addressing the capital-labor relationship he so astutely acknowledges, the question remains: who benefits when the flood comes for us all?<\/p>\n