Supremacy

The astonishing, behind-the-scenes story of the race to perfect the greatest invention in human history, artificial intelligence, and the men, women and companies that seek to profit from it all.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024*

"Astonishing... [Olson has] exclusive access to a network of high-ranking sources" - Financial Times

"A riveting tale... Olson is a compelling storyteller" - New Scientist

From award-winning journalist Parmy Olson, Supremacy is the astonishing, untold, behind-the-scenes story of the battle between two AI companies, their struggles to use their tech for good, and the dangerous direction that they're now going in.

When ChatGPT was released, the world changed overnight. Even as we all played with the new toy, a very real danger was quickly coming to light: that untested automations would undermine our way of life insidiously, sucking value out of our economy, replacing high-level creative jobs and enabling a new, terrifying era of disinformation.

It was never meant to be this way. The founders of the two companies behind the most advanced AIs in existence - Open AI (ChatGPT) and DeepMind (Bard) - started their journeys determined to solve humanity's greatest problems. But they couldn't develop their technologies without huge amounts of money - money that Microsoft and Google were more than happy to give them, in exchange for the most powerful seats at the table.

From award-winning journalist Parmy Olson, Supremacy is the astonishing, untold, behind-the-scenes story of the battle between two AI companies, their struggles to use their tech for good, and the dangerous direction that they're now going in. Featuring a cast of larger-than-life characters, including Elon Musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel, Supremacy is a story of manipulation, exploitation, secrecy and of ruthless, relentless human progress - progress that will impact all of us for years to come.

Auteur
Parmy Olson is a technology columnist with Bloomberg covering artificial intelligence, social media and tech regulation. She has written about the evolution of AI since 2016 when she covered Silicon Valley for Forbes magazine, before becoming a technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of We Are Anonymous, a 2012 exposé of the eponymous hacker collective, and she was named by Business Insider as one of the Top 100 People in UK Tech in 2019. She has two honourable mentions for the SABEW business journalism awards for her reporting on Facebook and WhatsApp, and was named Digital Journalist of the Year 2023 by PRCA, the world's largest public relations body.