Could AI’s leading men become as powerful as Ford or Rockefeller?

Today, there are five men in the world of artificial intelligence who have become so well known that their first names alone suffice: Dario, Demis, Elon, Mark, and Sam. One thing few expect: their influence on this technology is so great that politicians and journalists literally hang on their every word, as was the case a century ago with Ford or Rockefeller. But the real question is whether these five men, along with their companies, will ever come to control the economy and society as the great industrial tycoons did. The common belief is that the new “masters of artificial intelligence” are already omnipotent, but the reality is more nuanced. We are used to seeing figures like Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller as examples of absolute power, capable of dictating rules, prices and, ultimately, the lifestyle of entire generations. Today, however, even though Sam Altman, through OpenAI, runs ChatGPT, which has over 900 million users each week, the type of control is different—more fluid, more dependent on public reactions and politics. Take Dario Amodei: His company, Anthropic, has developed an AI model so adept at hacking that it has alarmed legislators. Demis Hassabis, who leads Google’s AI efforts, has even won a Nobel Prize for scientific research. Elon Musk, with his xAI and all the other companies he runs, is the richest man on the planet. With Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has created the most widely used family of open-source models in the West and is investing huge sums to stay at the forefront. But despite these numbers and this aura, the gap between them and the historic tycoons is still wide. One episode puts it all into perspective: when OpenAI launched ChatGPT, Sam Altman said that even he hadn’t expected such explosive growth. Just imagine: one of the world’s AI leaders finding himself chasing after his own product, not leading it. And if you look at Mark Zuckerberg's story, his attempt to catch up with the competition has led Meta to spend more on AI research than any U.S. university, just to avoid falling behind. Here's a fact to ponder: In the 1920s, Henry Ford controlled 60% of the U.S. automobile market. Today, none of these five companies holds a comparable share of the global AI market, nor of the infrastructure that supports it. The perspective that is often missing from these discussions is this: the real power of the Rockefellers and the Fords came from their control over raw materials and the rules of the game. Here, though, we are dealing with a technology that changes every six months, where even the top performers risk being overtaken by a new algorithm, a startup, or a policy decision. The sentence that sums it all up? The new kings of artificial intelligence are as famous as the old industrial dynasties, but their power is much more fragile and less secure than it appears. If the way power operates in the AI era has left you feeling disoriented, on Lara Notes, you can mark this moment with I'm In: it's the gesture of someone embracing a new perspective. And when you find yourself saying, perhaps over dinner, that the AI bosses are not the new Rockefellers – at least, not yet – on Lara Notes, you can tag those who were with you using Shared Offline: that way, the conversation remains, even after the news has passed. This Note comes from The Economist and saved you more than five minutes compared to the original article.