OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: As We Get Closer to Superintelligence, Everyone Gets More Stressed & Anxious

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2023-12-13

YouTube video id: JNG6JH2WxvM

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNG6JH2WxvM

lot of things it's honestly it's been a
crazy whole year like in the context of
everything that has happened to us this
last three weeks or a month or whatever
it's been it stands out but not as much
as you would think it should we we kind
of like went from this unknown research
lab to this like reasonably well-known
tech company in a year and I think that
takes most companies like 10 years and
that's been a wild experience to live
through um of course these last few
weeks have been particularly crazy uh
and sort of like painful and exhausting
and happy to like be back to work
um to say something like empathetic uh I
think everybody involved in this as we
get closer and closer to Super
intelligence um everybody involved gets
more stressed and more anxious and we
realize the stakes are higher and higher
and I think that it all exploded how do
you think this moment has changed open
a um it's been extremely painful for me
personally but I actually think it's
been great for
open um we've never been more unified uh
we have never been more sort of
determined and focused and we always
said that some Moment Like This would
come between where we were and building
AGI I didn't think it was going to come
so soon but I think we are strong having
gone through it uh again I like wouldn't
wish it on an Endy but it it did
it did have an extremely positive effect
on the company and what did you learn
from
it
um I haven't like fully recompiled
reality yet it like I didn't I've been
at the time to like emotionally process
all of this because it was like it all
happened so fast and then I'd like come
back in and pick up to Pieces um but I
haven't had time to like sit down and
really reflect as much as I would like
but I I would say
the most important thing that I learned
um you know a thing I had always heard
as like a share or whatever is that your
job as a CEO is how much like the people
you hire and how much you sort of
develop and Mentor your team and the
proudest moment for me in all of this
craziness was realizing that the
executive team could totally run the
company without me I can go retire
opening I F and I'm super proud of the
people to do that and to watch them work
at a time where I couldn't really talk
to them um but they did an amazing
job really made me very proud and it
also made me very optimistic because I
think as we do get closer to artificial
general intelligence as the stakes
increase here um the ability for the
open AI team to operate in uncertainty
and stressful times is is like really
that should be of interest to the world
you You' describing how high the stakes
are here what do you say to someone who
says this company brought itself to the
brink of
self-destruction how can we trust its
leader and how can we trust its company
with this transformative
technology um we have to make changes I
we we always said that we didn't want
AGI to be controlled by a small set of
people we wanted to be democratized and
we clearly got that wrong so I think if
we don't think if we don't improve our
governance structure if we don't improve
our the way we interact with the world
people shouldn't but we're very
motivated to improve that on those
changes um your former uh co-founder
Elon Musk former person of the year um
has described open AI as a closed
sourced maximum profit company
effectively grow effectively controlled
by Microsoft uh is Elon
wrong on all of those topics and any
others or and you I
actually in spite of his like constant
attacks on openi I'm very grateful he
long exists in the world I why because I
think he's done some amazing things I
think the transition to electric
vehicles is super important um I think
getting to space is super important
uh and I'm grateful for those things you
know we're definitely not maximum profit
sinking although we talked to Elon about
some his Ventures for that one um and we
open source a lot of stuff will open
source more in the future and we're
certainly not controlled by Microsoft
um and I think all
that is something that someone can say
but does not actually reflect the truth
um a thought on a question about another
competitor Google released Gemini last
week um a model that Google claims
outperforms pt4 uh many performance
tests what do you make of Gemini and why
did it take them so long to release
it I'm happy for more people to be
making AI progress I think I think AI
will be the most the single most
transformative technology of this era
and so more people doing that I think is
great when the Big Gemini model I forget
what it's called I think Gemini Ultra
when that gets released sometime next
year we'll get to look at it I can weigh
in on it then um certainly there's been
a lot of confusion around the metrics
but I'm I'm sure Google will do great
work in an interview earlier this year
with Edward Fel andth you said uh my my
predecessor As Time editor and chief you
said I am a Midwestern Jew I think that
fully explains my mental
model is that true you still feeling
right I think it's like a compressed one
sense to like explain everything about
what I I think that's pretty good as a
um as a New England Jew I have to ask
you um how does Jud Judaism shape your
worldview and what has it been like to
been a Jewish leader since October
7th you know if you had asked me this
question at the beginning of the year um
I would have said there's all of these
like subtle but important cultural
things that have I think shaped my
worldview and how I act and how I sort
of live my
life and I wouldn't have talked about
anything other than that and one of one
of the weird things about Jewish and
getting internet famous is like most of
your online experience is people saying
like horrible things about Jews and I
don't know if that was always the case
or if that's like ramped up but that's
certainly been my experience this year
and on double time since since the last
couple of months
um I think I was just like wrong to be
so dismissive of this I was like look
anti-Semitism we're done with that the
world has moved on there's other
problems let's talk about those and I
have really seen in this this last year
and particularly this last couple of
months that I was just completely wrong
about that and it's like a sad sad thing
for the world you're someone who likes
to take on intractable problems as you
thought about that you know how do you
think about Solutions towards
that that one seems harder than
AI uh speaking of difficult problems uh
next year is a historic year for
democracy there will be elections in 40
countries um are you concerned at all
about ai's ability to contribute to
disinformation and or do you have do you
think there are specific cerns that
we're not concerns that you think we're
not taking seriously in yeah
so I think AGI will be the most powerful
technology Humanity has yet invented and
like any other previous powerful
technology that will lead to incredible
new things I think we'll see educ ation
changed deeply and improved forever I
think the kids that start kindergarten
today by the time they graduate 12th
grade will be smarter and better
prepared than the best kids of today I
think that's great I think we talk about
the same thing a lot of other things
Healthcare people who program for a
living a lot of other knowledge work but
there are going to be real
downsides and one of those I mean
there'll be many that we'll have to
mitigate but one of those is going to be
around um
the persuasive ability of these models
and the ability for them to affect
elections next year and I think we're
going to really front something quite
challenging so what's that going to look
like you could have so so right now um
it's like troll farms in whatever
foreign country we are trying to
interfere with our elections they make
one great Meme and that spreads out and
all of us see the same thing on Twitter
Facebook or
whatever
that'll continue to happen that'll get
better but a thing that I'm more
concerned about is what happens if an AI
reads everything you've ever written
online all every article every tweet
every everything and then right at the
exact moment sends you one message
customized for you that really changes
the way you think about the world um
that's like a new kind of interference
that just wasn't possible before a I
find in most conversations with you
people are processing Their Fear so if
you'll allow me um is
is AI good or bad for
media one thing I always say is no one
knows what happens next I think the way
technology goes predictions are often
wrong the future is like subtle and
nuanced and dependent on many branching
probabilities uh so the honest answer is
I don't know but I think it's going to
be more good than bad it will be bad in
all sorts of ways but I think it Nets
out to something good as people have
more free time time um more attention
and also care more about the people they
trust to help them make sense of the
world to help them decide what to trust
and how to think about a complicated
issue I I think they're going to rely
and care more about their relationship
with someone in the media more and more
and care more about high quality
information in a world of like massive
amounts of generated content so I think
it should be net good but it will be
different how do you think about your
company's role and your role in helping
to preserve an ecosystem where high
quality information
remains it's obviously super important
to us the that's like a sort of empty
statement um the kinds of things that we
try to do are build tools that are help
to people if to people in media people
in other Industries if if you had asked
us 5 years ago what was going to happen
we would have said we will be able to
build you know trusted responsible AI
but fundamentally it's going to be going
off and doing its thing and now I think
we see a path to what we do is instead
build tools for people and we put these
tools out into the world and People
Media or otherwise use them to architect
the future and that is the most
optimistic thing I think we have
discovered in our history and the the
safety story changes in that world the
way we are responsible actor in society
changes in that World um I think we now
see a path where we just Empower
everyone on Earth to do what they do
more and better uh and that's That's so
exciting that's so different than how I
thought I was going to go but I'm so
happy about it speaking about where AI
is going to go um one of the challenges
I think we had in in talking about the
work that you've done and that open AI
is doing is helping people understand
your vision of of what artificial
general intelligence means for our fut
and so can you help this room understand
how their lives will be changed you said
you can't predict the future but as we
move forward you know what will AGI mean
for all of
us I think the two I mean there's many
like important forces towards the future
but I think the two most important ones
are artificial intelligence and energy
um if we can make abundant intelligence
for the world and if we can create
abundant energy then our ability to have
amazing ideas for our children to like
teach themselves more than ever before
for people to be more productive to
offer better healthare to uplift the
economy um and to actually put those
things into action with energy I think
those are
two massive massive
things now they come with downsides and
so it's on us to figure out how to make
this safe and how to responsibly put
this in the hands of people but I think
we see a path now where the world gets
much more abundant and much better there
every year and people have the ability
to do way way more than we can possibly
imagine today and I think we're I think
2023 was the year we started to see that
2024 we'll see way more of it and by the
time like the end of this decade rolls
around um I think the world is going to
be in a unbelievably better place it
sounds sort of like silly and sci-fi
optimism to say this but if if you think
about how different the world can be not
only when every person has a you know
today they have like chat gbt it's like
not very good um but next they have like
the world's best chief of staff and then
after that every person has like a
company of 20 or 50 experts that can
work super well together and then after
that everybody has a company of 10,000
experts in every field that can work
super well together and if someone wants
to go focus on curing disease they can
do that there some ones to focus on
making great art they can do that but if
if you think about you know the cost of
intelligence and the the quality of
intelligence the cost following the
quality increasing by a lot and what
people can do with that it's like a very
different world it's the world that
sidel has promised us for a long time
and and for the first time I think we
could just start to like see what that's
going to look like two quick questions
to to wrap up this conversation and
again thank you for being here uh
disqualify yourself in consideration and
remember there are a lot of CEOs in the
room tonight who should be the the 2023
CEO of the year if on
you there are a lot of good choices for
that
um I mean I I I'm hugely biased on this
I do think uh AI was sort of the
most exciting impactful thing to happen
this year so I'd give it to one of the
other AI companies but like really
biased smooth answer
um a much harder question to end this
conversation uh what is your favorite
Taylor Swift
song uh that is a hard question to pick
like a not super popular I would say
wildest dreams but oh I like but