Sam Altman feels useless and sad using his own AI tools, exposing a new kind of tech anxiety

Sam Altman Confronts AI Anxiety After Using OpenAI's Codex

In a moment of unexpected vulnerability, Sam Altman shared on X that building an app with Codex, OpenAI's AI coding agent, left him feels useless and sad 1

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. The OpenAI CEO described the process as "very fun" initially, but the mood shifted when he asked the system for feature ideas and realized "at least a couple of them were better than I was thinking of" 2

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. This confession from one of artificial intelligence's most prominent champions reveals a psychological challenge now confronting even those building the technology: feelings of obsolescence as AI tools outpace human capability.

Codex, released as a standalone Mac app for developers, handles everything from writing new features to fixing bugs and proposing pull requests while integrated directly with codebases 3

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. For Altman, whose professional identity centers on building software and championing AI progress, watching his own product outperform his ideas landed with unusual force. "I am sure we will figure out much better and more interesting ways to spend our time, and amazing new ways to be useful to each other, but I am feeling nostalgic for the present," he wrote 1

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Tech Executives Echo Feelings of Grief and Disorientation

Altman isn't alone in experiencing AI anxiety. The same day, Aditya Agarwal, former CTO of Dropbox and co-founder of health app Bevel, shared similar emotions after coding with Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant 1

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. "It's a weird time. I am filled with wonder and also a profound sadness," Agarwal wrote on X, concluding that "we will never ever write code by hand again. It doesn't make any sense to do so" 3

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. He described coding as "something I was very good at" that is now "free and abundant," leaving him "happy, but disoriented... sad and confused" 2

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This phenomenon extends beyond tech executives. Chris Brockett, a veteran Microsoft researcher, was rushed to the hospital after encountering an early AI system that could replicate decades of his expertise, initially believing he was having a heart attack 2

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. MIT physicist Max Tegmark has expressed worry that AI might "eclipse those abilities that provide my current sense of self-worth and value on the job market" 2

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User Backlash Reveals Deeper Frustrations About Job Insecurity Due to AI

Altman's post generated fierce user backlash, with nearly 3 million views and over 2,100 replies 3

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. Workers facing diminishing professional roles accused him of shedding tears "into a giant pile of money" while they adjusted to careers reshaped around talking to ChatGPT instead of doing work they trained for 2

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. An anonymous headhunter with over a decade of experience asked: "What do you think your average white-collar worker will feel when AI takes their job?" 2

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A food writer described watching her career "disappear" as AI systems churn out "hollow copies" of her work, trained on data taken "without anyone's consent" 3

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. The replies also became a staging ground for broader anger about OpenAI's rapid product shifts, including the planned deprecation of GPT-4o on February 13, with users pleading for more stability and transparency 3

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. Though OpenAI is also retiring GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and o4-mini, GPT-4o remains a particular favorite among users due to its warm, conversational style and multimodal AI capabilities 3

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The Future of Work: From Execution to Asking Questions

For years, predictions of a white-collar jobs bloodbath due to artificial intelligence have circulated, and more recently, AI startups are raising billions to develop "brains" for robots that could complete blue-collar and industrial jobs too 1

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. AI agents are expected to help shape agendas, coach senior leaders, and reshape business calls with new thinking 1

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. Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford Digital Economy Lab director, suggested at an Axios Davos event in January that "more and more people are going to be... chief question officers. Not chief executive officers. People who define the question for a fleet of agents who then carry them out become the CQO" .

Dario Amodei, Anthropic CEO, has called on Congress and policymakers to act faster as AI capabilities accelerate and "test who we are as a species" 1

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. Labor economist David Autor argues that if used deliberately, AI could expand "decision-making tasks currently arrogated to elite experts" to a broader swath of workers, improving job quality and moderating inequality. In his view, the future of work with AI is "a design problem," not a prediction exercise 2

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For builders whose value is tied to that "Aha!" moment when they think of a solution no one else did, having a model serve that on a silver platter means the project might be better, but the process can feel hollow 4

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. A Silicon Valley product manager told Vanity Fair in 2023: "We're seeing more AI-related products and advancements in a single day than we saw in a single year a decade ago" 2

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. The AI revolution is hitting closer to home than its creators expected, forcing even those championing AGI to reckon with what it means when human intuition is no longer the only game in town 4

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