The co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, visited Nigeria last week and met with tech entrepreneurs, government representatives, and students in Lagos. It was the only scheduled Africa stop on a 17-city global listening tour to engage with local users of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s signature product. OpenAI presents itself as being governed by the opposite of the ‘move fast and break things’ ethos that spurred Facebook in years past, by devising policies that constrain how licensees can use its models. There aren’t many examples of African startups creating AI tools on the scale that OpenAI operates. As with other stops elsewhere, OpenAI did not invite the press for Altman’s visit to Nigeria, though journalists were not prevented from attending. It was a very quiet affair compared to previous visits by Silicon Valley leaders, notably Mark Zuckerberg in 2016, and Jack Dorsey in 2019.
