Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, which launched ChatGPT, is not overweight. Gay tech billionaires rarely are. Even so, as he explained in a recent interview, he was keen to try a GLP-1, one of those drugs that have revolutionised weight loss in the past five years. You can understand why he was curious. Ozempic or Mounjaro might appear to have nothing in common with artificial intelligence, but both phenomena have created a sensation that we’re entering an era of accelerating and uncontrollable change.

Alas, he screwed it up. He had someone inject him with a megadose, puked all night and then lay in bed for days ‘staring at a white ceiling thinking nothing’, not only feeling no urge to eat but also no ‘desire for anything’.

Running for the bus is now as easy as it was decades ago. But only when I can be bothered to go anywhere

Running for the bus is now as easy as it was decades ago. But only when I can be bothered to go anywhere

When I read that on X, I knew exactly how Altman felt, or didn’t feel. In a few months I’ve lost three stone on Mounjaro. Now, I’m aware that journalists’ accounts of their weight-loss journeys could qualify for the World Boring Championships imagined by the satirist Michael Wharton in his ‘Peter Simple’ Telegraph column (suggested topics: ‘A history of plywood’ and ‘Parking problems in Wolverhampton’). So I’ll keep it brief.

This is the........

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