OpenAI leaders reportedly explored unconventional ways to finance the development of artificial general intelligence, or AGI (AI capable of broad human-level tasks), during the company’s early years. A 2017 internal proposal known as the countries plan considered involving the United States, China and Russia by auctioning future AGI rights or accepting government funding. Dario Amodei, then a senior researcher, reportedly called the idea morally illegitimate, warning that it could intensify arms races and enable human rights abuses. In 2020, Sam Altman reportedly offered Kanye West early access to an unreleased version of GPT-3, but OpenAI’s policy director blocked the proposal because of West’s unpredictable behavior. OpenAI disputes the account’s characterization of the countries plan, saying it considered only international cooperation and never intended to sell AGI to China or Russia. The reported disputes over governance, commercialization and leadership trust preceded Amodei’s departure with colleagues and the founding of Anthropic in 2021. The episode helps explain the rival labs’ contrasting identities as they compete for enterprise customers, government contracts and research talent.