If what David Grusch is saying about UAP is true (and please don't let this thread turn into a debate about that), this feels like it's falling into a similar pattern. A potential world changing capability is being developed, the type of capability that whoever controls it, and masters it, can gain control of EVERYTHING.
So I think there's an internal divide, both sides have good intentions. They want the best for the people they think they're protecting. In the case of UAP, it was to protect US national security. In the case of OpenAI, I think it's to attempt a slow transition of the global economy. But on the opposite side, that has to be balanced with the potential widespread benefits of opening it up.
In the case of AI, we could open it up, but what if the Chinese, or a malevolent capitalist entity uses the technology to go full speed ahead, and accumulates the entire economy under their sole control.
This weekend, there was an event by a group called the SOL foundation for UAP. They revealed something called the "Slow Disclosure" [1], a process to avert what they call "Catastrophic Disclosure". I see AI falling into similar power dynamics. Keep it all to yourself because you trust yourself, and let it out only after you've fully mastered it... or take a risk of letting the world start mastering it with you, but start to realize the world changing benefits immediately.
Both sides have good points, nobody is wrong. People just have different risk tolerance. OpenAI looks a lot like our government today, internally divided, a few people with the power to choose which path we go in history. That's a lot of power, you better believe things are going to look weird on the outside.
[1] https://twitter.com/tinyklaus/status/1726061116730609692