- 2 days ago
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explains how AI is evolving, why regulation and safety matter, and what superintelligence could mean for the future of work and discovery.
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00:00Sam, you are a pioneer of artificial intelligence. You are a genius.
00:05What kind of essence will artificial intelligence never be able to use?
00:30We still have to figure out what to do, what other people want, what other people will find useful.
00:34And I think that will be quite important.
00:37Die künstliche Intelligenz entwickelt sich ja rasant.
00:40Wann genau, glaubst du, wird es eine super Intelligenz geben, die in allen Eigenschaften schlauer ist als der Mensch?
00:48I think in many ways GPT-5 is already smarter than me at least.
00:53You know, I think a lot of other people too.
00:56GPT-5 is capable of doing incredible things that many people would struggle with or find very impressive.
01:01But it's also not able to do a lot of things that humans could do easily.
01:05And I think this will be the course of things for a while, where we will see that AI systems can do some things incredibly well,
01:12struggle with some others, and humans use these tools and bring their sort of human insight, creativity, ingenuity to bear in ways that are really important.
01:22I expect, though, the trajectory of the capability progress of AI to remain extremely steep.
01:29So, you know, we've seen just in the two years or three years since ChatGPT has launched, it's almost been three, how much more capable the models have gotten.
01:37And I see no sign of that slowing down.
01:40I think in another couple of years it will become very plausible for AI to make, for example, scientific discoveries that humans cannot make on their own.
01:49And I think, to me, that'll start to feel like something we could properly call superintelligence.
01:54And have you a precise point in which year you have this superintelligence expected?
02:01One of the things that I have learned continuously is although we can say the ramp will be very steep, very precise, you know, it'll happen this month, this year are difficult.
02:13If we don't have models that are extraordinarily capable and do things that we ourselves cannot do, I'd be very surprised.
02:23And also if in 2026 we don't see a similar rate of progress we've seen in 2024 and 2025, I'd also be surprised.
02:31And that means that by the end of 2026 I would expect models that if we had them today would be quite surprising.
02:39A lot of experts believe that the whole career development will disappear from the bookkeeper to the bankkeeper.
02:46How many percent of the jobs that it's today will disappear in your opinion?
02:52Well, in 30 years I would expect a lot of change. But in 30 years jobs change all the time.
02:56And if you think about the jobs that we did 30 years ago that may not exist at all today or new jobs that were kind of difficult to imagine 30 years ago that are now commonplace today.
03:06I remember reading a statistic once that about every 75 years half the jobs in society change over.
03:12That's even without AI. It may happen. I expect it will happen faster now.
03:16The thing that I find useful is to think about the percentage of tasks, not the percentage of jobs.
03:23There will be many jobs where a lot of what it means to do that job change.
03:27AI can do things much better. It can free up people to do more and different things.
03:31There will of course be totally new jobs and many existing jobs will entirely go away to be replaced by these new jobs.
03:37But I think the more interesting thing is of everyone's job, what percentage of that, what percentage of the tasks you do every day will be done by AI.
03:45And I can easily imagine a world where 30, 40% of the tasks that happen in the economy today get done by AI in the not very distant future.
03:54You've become a father this year. What would you recommend to your son to do that, so that his job in 30 years will not simply be replaced by AI?
04:02How was that, Stuart?
04:03The meta skill of learning how to learn, of learning to adapt, learning to be resilient to a lot of change.
04:12I mentioned this earlier, but learning how to figure out what people want, how to make useful products and services for them, how to interact in the world.
04:21I'm so confident that people will still be the center of the story for each other and anything in that world I think will be great.
04:29And I'm also so confident that human desire for new stuff, desire to be useful to other people, desire to express our creativity, I think this is all limitless.
04:40In all these previous technological revolutions, people wonder, rightly so, what are we all going to do?
04:45In the industrial age, these machines came along and we watched them do the things that we used to do and said, what would be the role for us?
04:51And each new generation uses their creativity and new ideas and all of the tools the previous generation built for them to astonish us. And I'm sure my kids will do the same.
05:00Du klingst sehr optimistisch, aber es gibt natürlich auch KI-Kritiker, die vor allem die dunkle Seite und die Gefahren sehen.
05:07Zum Beispiel der berühmte KI-Forscher Elisa Jutkowski. Ich zitiere ihn mal. Der sagt nämlich zum Beispiel,
05:13das Verhältnis der Superintelligenz zum Menschen wäre ungefähr so wie das Verhältnis des Menschen zu einer Ameise.
05:20Wir denken nicht darüber nach, ob wir einen Ameisenhaufen zerstören. Wir tun es einfach, sofern er uns im Weg ist.
05:25Also wie groß ist deine persönliche Angst, dass die KI uns irgendwann wie Ameisen betrachtet und uns einfach zerstört?
05:33I've heard many people describe many different ways of what the relationship between an AI and humanity will be.
05:40The one that has always been my favorite is my co-founder Ilyas Jutskowar once said that he hoped that the way that an AGI would treat humanity,
05:54or all AGI's would treat humanity, is like a loving parent.
05:57And given the way you asked that question it came to mind, I think it's a particularly beautiful framing.
06:03That said, I think we, when we ask that question at all, we are sort of anthropomorphizing AGI.
06:12And what this will, I believe, will be is a tool that is enormously capable.
06:16And even if it has no intentionality, by asking it to do something, there could be side effects, consequences we don't understand.
06:22And so it is very important that we align it to human values, but we get to align this tool to human values.
06:30And I don't think it'll treat humans like ants. Let's say that.
06:33Kritiker werfen dir ja vor, dass du Open AI von einer gemeinnützigen Institution, die die Risiken von KI erforschen sollte,
06:40zu einem kommerziellen Unternehmen umgebaut hast und da auch teilweise die Sicherheitsrisiken außer Acht gelassen hast.
06:47Trifft dich diese Kritik? Stört dich das? Oder denkst du, man muss einfach manchmal vorangehen, wenn man Fortschritte erziehen will?
06:54First of all, we still have a non-profit entity and we always will.
06:57I hope that we will have, I believe we will have the best resource and hopefully the most impactful non-profit of all time.
07:03And this is very important to our mission. Also important to our mission is the governance role of this and ensuring that we stick to our mission
07:10and that we prioritize safety and the well-being and the maximum benefit of humanity.
07:15We've obviously made some mistakes as we understand this new technology will make more in the future.
07:19But on the whole, I'm extremely proud of our team's track record on figuring out how to make these services safe, broadly beneficial and widely distributed.
07:28One of our core beliefs is that if we can figure out how to build this tool, align it with human values
07:33and then put it out into people's hands and have them express all of the things they want to do with this, that will be great for the world and is deeply in accordance with our mission.
07:42In Europa, da diskutiert man ja gerade sehr lebhaft über den AI Act, um künstliche Intelligenz zu regulieren.
07:49Wie ist dein Blick da drauf? Sind die Regeln gut? Sind es zu viele Regeln oder sollte man die einfach wegwerfen?
07:57Obviously, that's a question for the European people and the European policymakers.
08:03I met with a lot of German companies yesterday and they did all express both concern about overregulation, but also hope that
08:12regulation can be sensible and protect the European people and the world.
08:17And I am also hopeful for a good balance there.
08:20Du hast dich gestern ja auch mit dem Bundeskanzler getroffen. Was hast du mitgenommen aus diesem Gespräch?
08:25I was very impressed. We had a great discussion about the need to build infrastructure in Germany to offer AI Services in Germany by Germany for Germany.
08:34We were very excited about our recent announcement yesterday with SAP and Microsoft to offer a sovereign cloud for the German public sector to use frontier models and maintain sovereignty.
08:44So we had a great discussion about that as well.
08:46Du sagst, er wollte Infrastruktur in Deutschland bauen. Das Problem ist, der Strom ist in Deutschland ungefähr dreimal so teuer wie in den USA und fünfmal so teuer wie in China.
08:56Ist Deutschland überhaupt ein attraktiver Standort für OpenAI?
09:00So, certainly, the energy costs are a challenge for AI. However, we had also a good discussion about how to address the energy needs of AI.
09:10And more than that, I think that use of AI will be one of the best uses of energy, whether it's used in Germany or, you know, you run on servers that are somewhere else because you don't want to build the data centers here, which would be a very valid choice.
09:26The importance of delivering AI in Germany to German businesses and German consumers is very important.
09:32Germany is our biggest market in Europe. It's our fifth biggest market in the entire world. Virtually all young German people use ChatGPT.
09:38So, AI is here and people are getting value from it and we'll keep doing that and we'll address the energy challenges.
09:46Was wäre denn deine Empfehlung für Deutschland, wie man die Energiepreise senken könnte?
09:53Ist nicht zum Beispiel der Atomausstieg aus deiner Sicht vollkommen irre?
09:59Look, again, this is up to the German people and I don't understand all of the sort of trade-offs locally.
10:05I personally believe that nuclear energy, advanced fission, the whole set of approaches is one of the most promising approaches to energy and that's something that the world should pursue more.
10:19In dem Rennen um künstliche Intelligenz dominieren ja ganz klar die USA und China. Deutschland hinkt ziemlich hinterher.
10:27Was müsste Deutschland tun, um aufzuholen im KI-Wettrennen?
10:31I was very impressed in my meetings with German CEOs yesterday. I think the companies here really plan to make a big bet on AI, implement it in big ways.
10:40They believe that it can add huge value to what they're doing. Heard the same message from the government about its ambitions for AI.
10:46So again, given what we are seeing for AI adoption in Germany, it's like unbelievably strong. I think it's up 5x in the last 12 months. Incredible. I'm optimistic about this.
10:56Yeah.
10:57Die ganze Welt guckt ja auf eine Innovation aus dem Hause OpenAI. Es soll demnächst auch eine Hardware geben, ein OpenAI-Gerät.
11:05Du hast dafür einen Designer von Apple eingestellt. Das heißt, wir gehen davon aus, es wird auf jeden Fall, das Gerät wird auf jeden Fall gut aussehen.
11:13Aber was wird das OpenAI-Gerät können? Erzähl uns doch ein bisschen was.
11:18It will be looking good. I think we've only had one or two big revolutions in how we use computers in a long time.
11:28We had the mouse and the keyboard and the idea of the monitor displaying this sort of windowed system, and that was a breakthrough for sure.
11:34And then we had the touch devices, which adapted that, took out the mouse, let you just use your finger and have this very personal device.
11:42And this is huge, but, you know, fundamentally, we have never had something as powerful as AI. Computers really can understand what we want, can think, that has let us reimagine what it could mean to use a computer.
11:55So we're still exploring. It'll take us quite some time. Don't expect anything very soon.
12:00But over time, I expect we'll make a small family of devices. They will look good for sure, but that's not the main thing.
12:06I hope, if we work hard, if we do a really great job, they will change what it means to use a computer, and how you do your work, and how you play and live your life.
12:17But there's a lot of work, and a lot to explore between here and there.
12:21Now, of course, you made me nervous, then I have to ask. Tell me one feature or one ability that could have such a device.
12:28Right now, if you want to do a task on a computer, you have to click around, you have to go between a bunch of applications. If it's a difficult task, it might take you a while.
12:38One of the promises of AI is you can say something complex you need to happen over the course of a day or a month or a year even, and you can just trust that the computer will understand it, do it for you, come back to you when it needs help.
12:50But you can imagine asking a computer a very nuanced, complex, but brief question, and then just trusting that it's going to do the right thing and come back to you when it needs help.
13:00And that would totally change what it feels like to use the computer instead of launching a bunch of apps and having notifications constantly come up. So that's one thing.
13:10In the Tech-Industrie, in the USA, there has been a liberal-demokratical tone.
13:16Now, many Tech-Gurus and Tech-Bosses are also showing up with Donald Trump.
13:22You were right after his administration in the White House, you were already in the White House.
13:28How do you explain this Vibe-Shift in the Tech-Industrie?
13:32Why are now suddenly all of them really nice to see Trump?
13:37First of all, I think the tech industry should work with whoever the American president is.
13:43But in this specific case, I think there have been some welcome policy changes.
13:49The ability to build infrastructure in the United States, which have been quite difficult and quite important to companies like ours.
13:55President Trump has done an amazing job of supporting.
13:57And a more general pro-business climate and pro-tech climate has been also, I think, a welcome change.
14:04So, you know, that's kind of how I describe it.
14:07The USA are very polarized, right?
14:10I've lived there a few years and experienced how hot the mood is.
14:15How do you find the idea of a president of a president of the United States,
14:19and that's kind of what I expect to do,
14:21and that's kind of what I expect to do.
14:22What I expect, though, is that presidents and leaders around the world will use AI more and more to help them with complex decisions.
14:32But I think we all still want a human, you know, signing off on that at some point.
14:37Letzte Frage zum Schluss.
14:39Du hast vorhin erwähnt, wie viele Menschen in Deutschland ChatGPT schon nutzen.
14:42Ich habe mir das mal im Detail angeschaut.
14:44Viele Deutsche holen sich sogar Beziehungstipps von ChatGPT.
14:48Hast du deinen eigenen Bot auch schon mal um Hilfe gebeten in Beziehungsfragen?
14:53I don't use it as much for that as other people do.
14:56I've tried it, but no, that's not one of my big personal use cases.
14:59It's clearly something a lot of people use it for.
15:02Okay, Sam Ortman, vielen Dank für dieses Gespräch und Ihnen vielen Dank für Ihr Interesse.
15:07Wir machen hiermit Nachrichten weiter.
15:09Das war das Welt-Talk-Spezial mit OpenAI-CEO Sam Ortman.
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