- In a flip-flop, Sam Altman now says AGI will "matter much less" and the safety concerns "don't come at the AGI moment".
- Speaking at the NYT's DealBook summit, Altman said OpenAI will achieve AGI much sooner than most people think.
- Many analysts suggest that Altman is downplaying AGI to end the exclusive technology-sharing partnership with Microsoft.
Last year in May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before the US Senate and urged lawmakers to regulate AI to avoid “significant harm to the world”. Altman said, “I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.”
OpenAI itself published a blog titled “Planning for AGI and beyond” in 2023 which says, “AGI would also come with serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, and societal disruption.”
And now speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, Altman seems to have downplayed the risks of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) — an advanced AI system that can match or exceed human capabilities.
Altman said, “But my guess is we will hit AGI sooner than most people in the world think and it will matter much less. And a lot of the safety concerns that we and others expressed actually don’t come at the AGI moment. It’s like AGI can get built, the world goes on mostly the same way. The economy moves faster, things grow faster.“
He further said, “But then there is a long continuation from what we call AGI to what we call Superintelligence.“
Many analysts say that OpenAI is lowering expectations and shifting focus from AGI to Superintelligence to end the exclusive technology-sharing partnership with Microsoft. OpenAI has an AGI clause with Microsoft that says when the AI startup achieves AGI internally (which will be decided by the OpenAI board), Microsoft will lose access to OpenAI’s technologies.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI executives view this AGI clause as leverage to end the deal with Microsoft or negotiate a favorable contract. At the DealBook Summit, Altman agreed that there is some sort of tension between OpenAI and Microsoft. Altman said, “Again, there is not no tension, but on whole, like, I think our incentives are pretty aligned.“
Apart from that, the reason Altman is downplaying AGI may have to do with Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI over AGI fears and the transition from a non-profit to a for-profit corporation. The lawsuit claims that OpenAI’s control over AGI without adequate safeguards could lead to catastrophic outcomes.
At the DealBook conference, referring to Elon Musk’s close ties with President-Elect Donald Trump, Altman said, “I believe pretty strongly that Elon will do the right thing and that it would be profoundly un-American to use political power to the degree that Elon would hurt competitors and advantage his own businesses.“
Now, we need to see what kind of AGI OpenAI is preparing to release in 2025 or the year after that. By the way, the hot AI startup is celebrating “12 days of OpenAI” starting today. It will release new products, features, and cool demos over the next 12 days. Reportedly, OpenAI may release Sora, its text-to-video generator as well.
