Sam Altman, CEO of Artificial-intelligence power player OpenAI, believes that the next big developments in the field of AI will be more disruptive than people expect.
Altman, speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York City on Wednesday, predicted that as soon as 2025 the industry will begin to see the first examples of artificial general intelligence (AGI) in which you can give AI systems a lot. it’s a complex task (as a human being) and uses different tools to complete it.
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“I think it’s possible … in 2025 we’ll have a plan that we look at … and people will say, ‘Wow, that changes my expectations,'” he said.
Initially, the introduction of AGI – or “superintelligence” as some describe it – will have an impact, Altman said. But eventually “it’s going to be more than people think,” Altman said, adding that with the great advancements in technology, there has been a significant shift in jobs.
Asked about critics who say OpenAI doesn’t focus enough on security, Altman replied, “I point to our track record.”
ChatGPT, he said, “is now widely accepted in the community as being acceptably secure and robust,” according to Altman. While “there are people who think that ChatGPT is not secure enough” he said the company believes that repetition is important and that “you have to start when the stakes are low.”
Altman compared the advent of AI to the invention of the transistor, which was later used by companies around the world and revolutionized the economy. “There will be amazing talent [AI] types, which are widely available, are used to do everything,” he said. AI itself, the thinking engine, will be fixed, Altman opined.
In 2015, Altman, 39, founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and DALL-E, as a non-profit research lab. He served as president of the early-stage start-up accelerator Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019. Altman left YC in 2019 to become CEO of OpenAI. Last year, the board fired him – then hired him less than a week later – in a dispute over his “talking to the board.”
Tech mogul Elon Musk, OpenAI’s co-founder, sued OpenAI and Altman, alleging breach of contract and deviation from its original non-profit mission. According to the lawsuit, Musk “was betrayed by Mr. Altman and his colleagues. The hypocrisy and hypocrisy are Shakespearean. ” Musk launched his first-intelligence startup, xAI.
Altman said Musk’s trial with OpenAI made him feel “very sad.” “I grew up seeing Elon as a mega-hero,” he said. “Once upon a time [Musk] completely losing faith in OpenAI. ” Altman also said that he thinks that Musk’s XAI “will be a serious competitor.” He also said that he does not think that Musk would use his political relationship with Donald Trump to harm competitors, saying that such behavior “would not be American.”
When OpenAI started, Altman said, the founders did not realize that it required a lot of money to develop the product and did not expect to bring commercial products. “It wasn’t clear that we were going to have a product or a revenue stream,” Altman said, but that changed after the launch of ChatGPT. The company’s board is tasked with determining how to proceed with the transition to profitability, he said.
OpenAI has been at the center of some controversy. The company has been the target of lawsuits — including from the New York Times Co., which accused the AI gamer of serious copyright infringement by using book content to train its systems. Last week, OpenAI closed public access to Sora, the gen-AI video tool, following protests by artists who agreed to be early testers of the system and complained that it was being used for PR and unpaid R&D.
Regarding legal questions about copyright and AI, Altman said that “fair use discussions” are at the wrong stage, and that the industry needs to find new economic models to pay AI developers. DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, who interviewed Altman, replied that the resolution to these questions will be resolved by the court: “We’ll see you in court,” he told Altman, laughing.
In October, OpenAI raised $6 billion in new funding from investors including Microsoft and Nvidia, giving it a post-money valuation of $550 million. The San Francisco company has 1,700 employees after hiring more than 1,000 people since the beginning of the year.
Regarding OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, Altman admitted that it hasn’t had “mistakes or problems” but that overall it has been “a good thing for both companies.”
“No one No conflict, but all our values are connected,” Altman said.
OpenAI recently launched an internet search tool, and Altman said it’s his favorite product the company has ever launched. “It completely changed my internet usage,” he said.
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