Zoë Hitzig Left OpenAI. Here’s What She Told Us Weeks Before.

Zoë Hitzig (Research Scientist at OpenAI and Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows) recently made headlines with her New York Times piece criticizing OpenAI’s corporate incentive structure and raising broader questions about how AI companies should be governed. Before that piece reached mainstream, we sat down with her to explore where incentives can diverge between companies and users, and why building strong governance processes is essential for keeping frontier AI aligned with societal values. From there, we dive into what real-world data reveals about how people actually use ChatGPT and what it suggests about work, welfare, and the evolving economy. We discuss why access matters as these models scale, the surprisingly large share of everyday “how-to” and medical questions, and the limits of policy responses like UBI in addressing AI-driven change.

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Co-hosts: Owen Zhang and Will Sanok Dufallo

Production Lead: Kaitlyn Smith

Social Media Heads: Chloe Park and Yasmin Rodriguez Rascon