OpenAI's Sam Altman Claims AGI Breakthrough, Reflects on Company Turmoil

Sam Altman: OpenAI's New Model Passes AGI Threshold | PYMNTS.com

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says "AGI" (artificial general intelligence) has "become a very sloppy term." In a lengthy interview with Bloomberg News published Sunday (Jan. 5), he discussed his company's past, as well as its plans for achieving that AI-related benchmark: artificial intelligence that can think and reason at or above human levels. "If you look at our levels, our five levels, you can find people that would call each of those AGI, right?" Altman said. "And the hope of the levels is to have some more specific grounding on where we are and kind of like how progress is going, rather than is it AGI, or is it not AGI?" Later in the conversation, Altman refers to something called the ARC-AGI challenge, which he refers to as "a North Star toward AGI." The new AI model OpenAI plans to introduce Friday (Jan. 10) passes this challenge, which requires a model to rely more on reason than training data to achieve AGI. "They said if you can score 85% on this, we're going to consider that a 'pass,' Altman said. "And our system -- with no custom work, just out of the box -- got an 87.5%. And we have very promising research and better models to come." Asked about the incoming Trump administration, Altman said that "U.S.-built infrastructure and lots of it" would be the most helpful thing the White House could do for AI this year. "The thing I really deeply agree with the president on is, it is wild how difficult it has become to build things in the United States," he said. "Power plants, data centers, any of that kind of stuff. understand how bureaucratic cruft builds up, but it's not helpful to the country in general." Altman also spoke about his brief - but high-profile - ouster as head of the company in November of 2023, acknowledging that the experience had traumatized him, leaving him depressed even after he returned. "And it felt so unfair. It was just a crazy thing to have to go through and then have no time to recover, because the house was on fire," he said. In May of last year, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner said that Altman was fired because the board couldn't believe what the CEO was telling it. She said the board learned about ChatGPT's launch after the fact, that Altman didn't disclose his involvement with the company's startup fund, and that Altman repeatedly gave the board inaccurate information about the company's formal safety processes.

Sam Altman makes more big promises about AGI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blog post on Monday, musing about the history and future direction of the company. In it, he confidently states that his company knows "how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it," and that it is now working toward a "glorious future" of artificial super-intelligence. Altman also revealed Monday that OpenAI's $200-per-month Pro subscription is somehow losing the company money. "We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future," Altman wrote Monday. "Superintelligent tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own, and in turn massively increase abundance and prosperity." Recommended Videos OpenAI has previously defined such artificial general intelligence's (AGIs) as "AI systems that are generally smarter than humans." However, that definition has wavered in recent weeks with Altman predicting, "we will hit AGI sooner than most people in the world think and it will matter much less." Its pursuit of AGI may be moot if OpenAI doesn't find a way to keep its lights on. Altman revealed via an X post Monday that OpenAI's top-of-the-line, unlimited access $200-per-month Pro subscription is turning the opposite of a profit because "people use it more than we expected." "I personally chose the price and thought we would make some money," Altman wrote. He did not provide additional explanation as to his reasoning for choosing that price point or why he was involved in making that decision. OpenAI was expected to lose roughly $5 billion at the close of 2024 despite nearly $4 billion in sales. insane thing: we are currently losing money on openai pro subscriptions! people use it much more than we expected. — Sam Altman (@sama) January 6, 2025 Further, Altman did not expound on the company's financial status in his blog post but did revisit the fallout from his (albeit temporary) firing in November 2023. "The whole event was, in my opinion, a big failure of governance by well-meaning people, myself included. Looking back, I certainly wish I had done things differently, and I'd like to believe I'm a better, more thoughtful leader today than I was a year ago," Altman wrote. "Good governance requires a lot of trust and credibility. I appreciate the way so many people worked together to build a stronger system of governance for OpenAI that enables us to pursue our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits all of humanity." Since returning to his role overseeing OpenAI, Altman has solidified his power base within the company, wrestled control from its board, and helped steer it toward a far more lucrative, for-profit model, replacing its original nonprofit structure and development protections.

OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman Expresses Confidence In AGI Development, Opens Up About His Firing, And Emphasizes Commitment To The Vision Of Growth

OpenAI has been rapidly expanding and growing, and there is no denying that it has revolutionized AI and how its capabilities can be used to make everyday life better for end users. It started a wave in which many companies quickly adapted to the changing market and worked aggressively to leverage the technology and incorporate it into various products and domains. The ChatGPT maker has also been working arduously on developing AI and working towards achieving their next goal of progressing in artificial general intelligence. Now, the company's CEO, Sam Altman, shares his confidence in the progression made in achieving a long-awaited benchmark and heading for the next step forward. OpenAI has made quite the mark in bringing forward cutting-edge technology and has initiated an AI frenzy that will not slow down any time soon. We have been hearing persistently about how companies are now fixated on the next step towards AI development, which is Artificial General Intelligence. OpenAI is making many changes internally and working aggressively on moving forward on this expeditiously. The company has repeatedly placed heed on this achievement as a major goal. In an earlier statement with regard to AGI, Sam Altman opted for a nuanced approach when explaining the impact AGI would have and stated that it would matter much less when it comes out eventually. He downplayed the significance, and it could be that he wanted users to not over-hype it and have a more grounded perspective on it. In a blog post on Monday, Altman made an announcement detailing the journey so far and the future of OpenAI. Altman expressed: We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents "join the workforce" and materially change the output of companies. We continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great, broadly-distributed outcomes. Altman's statement reflects his confidence in the company's technical understanding of achieving AGI and the potential it holds to play a vital role in various domains and hopes in the revolutionary shift possibly materializing in 2025. He also emphasized the company's ultimate focus on moving to superintelligence, which holds the ability to surpass human intelligence. The progression in AGI is a stepping stone for the ambitious vision the company holds. Altman, in his post, was more forthcoming about his dismissal as CEO and shared the unfortunate situation that came about, put it on poor governance, and included himself in the past missteps. While acknowledging the complexities in the past, Altman expressed his hope for the future and placed great emphasis on being fixated on growth. The whole event was, in my opinion, a big failure of governance by well-meaning people, myself included. Looking back, I certainly wish I had done things differently, and I'd like to believe I'm a better, more thoughtful leader today than I was a year ago. Sam Altman's confidence in the vision and work OpenAI is putting in to open up more possibilities and maximize the benefit for the users by exploring a glorious future makes us hopeful of AGI and the major shift it will bring about.

Sam Altman Says AI Agents Will Transform the Workforce in 2025

Here are the biggest takeaways from Sam Altman's January 2025 lengthy blog post, titled "Reflections." Altman's firing still haunts him Altman was publicly fired by OpenAI's board in November 2023, just before ChatGPT's first birthday. Five days later, he was reinstated as CEO. In the blog post, Altman reveals some personal details regarding the firing, which happened over a video call while he was in Las Vegas. Looking back, he says the whole event was a "big failure of governance by well-meaning people, myself included," but one that he believes has made him a more thoughtful leader. Another lesson from the firing? The importance of having a board with diverse viewpoints and experience handling unexpected challenges.

Sam Altman Explodes at Board Members Who Fired Him

Image by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times In a freewheeling interview with Bloomberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman unloaded on the company's board members who abruptly sacked him in November 2023 -- new perspective on the coup that fleshes out both the history of the company and Altman's chaotic character as a leading figure in the explosive AI industry. At the time, the board said it no longer had the "confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," accusing him of not being "consistently candid in his communications." After being asked if he was "traumatized" by being booted from the company and the chaos that followed, Altman had some choice words for the former board members, many of whom stepped down following his reinstatement just over a week later. "And all those people that I feel like really fucked me and fucked the company were gone, and now I had to clean up their mess," adding that he was "fucking depressed and tired." "And it felt so unfair," the billionaire told Bloomberg. "It was just a crazy thing to have to go through and then have no time to recover, because the house was on fire." OpenAI quickly churned through several short-lived CEOs before rehiring Altman shortly afterward, a messy custody battle that shook the company -- and its public perception -- to its core. The company's board went through a major game of musical chairs, with esoteric chief scientist Ilya Sutskever -- who was one of the orchestrators of the coup and was quickly removed from the board as a result -- quitting in May 2024 in a fit of rage. At the time of Altman's dismissal, the company's board consisted of six people. Four of them voted to remove the CEO, and only one of them, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, stayed on the board following Altman's reinstatement. Meanwhile, many signs have suggested that Altman has been attempting to consolidate power at the top of the company's ranks after news emerged last year that the company was moving to restructure its core business into a "for-profit benefit corporation." After Bloomberg insinuated that he was being "sneaky" to turn the company into a competitive for-profit, Altman dismissed the turn of phrase, dismissing 2024 as a "crazy year." "It's a company that's moving a million miles an hour in a lot of different ways," he told the publication. "I would encourage you to talk to any current board member 12 and ask if they feel like I've ever done anything sneaky, because I make it a point not to do that." Altman, however, did appear more lucid about the chaos following his dismissal in late 2023. "The one thing I'm more aware of is, I had had issues with various board members on what I viewed as conflicts or otherwise problematic behavior, and they were not happy with the way that I tried to get them off the board," Altman admitted in his interview with Bloomberg. "Lesson learned on that." Just over a year later, there are plenty of reasons to believe that Altman holds more power over OpenAI than ever before. Case in point, weeks after Sutskever left, OpenAI dissolved the safety-oriented Superalignment team he was once in charge of. Less than ten days later, OpenAI announced the creation of a new "safety and security committee" -- with Altman at the helm.

Sam Altman on ChatGPT's First Two Years, Elon Musk and AI Under Trump

On Nov. 30, 2022, traffic to OpenAI's website peaked at a number a little north of zero. It was a startup so small and sleepy that the owners didn't bother tracking their web traffic. It was a quiet day, the last the company would ever know. Within two months, OpenAI was being pounded by more than 100 million visitors trying, and freaking out about, ChatGPT. Nothing has been the same for anyone since, particularly Sam Altman. In his most wide-ranging interview as chief executive officer, Altman explains his infamous four-day firing, how he actually runs OpenAI, his plans for the Trump-Musk presidency and his relentless pursuit of artificial general intelligence -- the still-theoretical next phase of AI, in which machines will be capable of performing any intellectual task a human can do. Edited for clarity and length.

Sam Altman on the OpenAI board members who 'f -- ed me'

Over a year after he was briefly fired as OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman said he felt "really f -- ed" by the former board members who made the decision. Altman, who was fired for four days in November 2023 after the startup's board concluded "he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board," told Bloomberg that he was asked almost immediately to return. However, when former Twitch (AMZN+1.80%) CEO Emmett Shear was announced as Altman's replacement instead, the AI leader said that's when he "got the most mad in the whole period." "And I was like, 'All right, now I'm f -- ing really done,' because that was real deception," Altman said. After being reinstated as chief executive, Altman said he "had a complete mess" on his hands that "got worse every day." As part of his agreement to return, Altman wanted OpenAI's board to resign. "[A]ll those people that I feel like really f -- ed me and f -- ed the company were gone, and now I had to clean up their mess," Altman told Bloomberg. Despite his disagreements with the former OpenAI board, Altman said he thinks it "was genuine in their level of conviction and concern about AGI going wrong." AGI stands for artificial general intelligence, and is the phase when an AI system will be capable of performing human-level tasks. "[M]aybe also that, like, AGI was right around the corner and we weren't being responsible with it," Altman said about the former board's decision. "So I can hold respect for that while totally disagreeing with the details of everything else." Altman said he thinks "AGI will probably get developed during" the incoming Trump administration. The OpenAI chief personally donated $1 million to the president-elect's inaugural fund.