In a post on his personal blog, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he believes OpenAI “knows[s] development [artificial general intelligence]”as it has traditionally been known – and has since changed its purpose to “superintelligence.” “We like the product now, but we are here for the glorious future,” wrote Altman in the post, which was published Sunday evening. “Super tools intelligent can accelerate scientific discovery and innovation far beyond what we can do alone, and can increase abundance and prosperity.” AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a vague term. But OpenAI has its own definition: “a highly autonomous system that beyond the human the most economically valuable work.” OpenAI and Microsoft, collaborators and close investors of the startup, also have a definition of AGI: AI systems that can generate at least $100 billion in revenue. (When OpenAI achieves this, Microsoft will lose access to the technology, according to an agreement between both companies.) So, which definition could Altman be referring to? In the post, Altman wrote that he thinks AI agents — AI systems that can perform specific tasks autonomously — could “join the workforce,” so to speak, and “materially change the output of companies” this year. “We continue to believe that putting good tools in people’s hands can produce widely distributed results,” Altman wrote. It works. But it is also true that current AI technology has significant technical limitations. It hallucinates. It makes mistakes obvious to every human being. And it can be very expensive. Altman seems confident that all of this can be resolved — and quickly. But if there’s anything we’ve learned about AI from the past few years, it’s that timelines can change. “We are pretty sure that in the next few years, everyone will see what we see, and the need to act carefully, while still maximizing benefits and empowerment, is very important,” Altman wrote. “Because of the possibilities of our work, OpenAI cannot be a normal company. How fortunate and humble to be able to play a role in this work.
