AI talent wars 2.0: hosts discuss Aidan Gomez and G7 chair moment with Sam Altman
Key Points
- At the G7, Trump asked Sam Altman how to operate an adjustable chair instead of using ChatGPT, which could photograph the chair, retrieve the manual, and walk him through the process.
- The moment reveals AI adoption's core friction: even in positions to benefit most from the technology, users default to human answers over available tools.
- Aidan Gomez, Cohere's CEO and co-author of the original Transformer paper, has become unexpectedly relevant to tech culture discourse.
Summary
AI Talent Wars 2.0: The Gomez moment and Altman's chair
Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere, has become unexpectedly relevant to tech culture discourse—though the hosts offer no specifics on what triggered the moment beyond noting he's a co-author of the original Transformer paper and a Death Grips enthusiast.
The sharper story lands elsewhere. At the G7, Donald Trump asked Sam Altman how to operate an adjustable chair. The irony is sharp: Altman has spent a decade and billions of dollars building a machine that can answer almost any question, including how to adjust a chair. ChatGPT can take a photo of the chair, pull the manual, and agentically walk someone through the process. Instead, Trump asked a human.
The hosts frame this as a microcosm of why AI adoption moves slowly. The president of the United States, in a position to benefit most directly from the technology, simply chose the human option. It's not that the technology failed—it's that friction, habit, and preference for the familiar still win out in the moment.
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