Sam Altman's AI Vision: Insights from Oprah's AI Special

Sam Altman is on the charm offensive for AI

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. The interview, which aired at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, was part Winfrey's hourlong TV special on ABC, "AI and the Future of US." In it, she speaks to key figures of the tech industry, including Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, about the impacts of AI. Winfrey also interviewed FBI Director Christopher Wary and the novelist Marilynne Robinson. Throughout the interview, Altman could be seen listening intently to Winfrey's simple but direct line of questioning. One of the points Winfrey pressed Altman on was that of public trust. "The bottom line for, I think, most people is whether or not you can trust the people who are in charge. And I know you went through a phase where your own board said, 'We don't trust you.' And then you got yourself another board," Winfrey said, referencing Altman's brief ousting in 2023, which came with allegations that the CEO lied to his board. "How do we know we can trust you?" Winfrey asked. What followed wasn't new answers from the CEO. Altman, who has previously been challenged on his commitment to AI safety, has already stressed the importance of transparency, keeping an open dialogue with the rest of the world, and delaying a product if deemed necessary. But what was on full display was his charm: the careful pauses, the coy laugh, and the diplomatic answers intended to convey a sense of calm and understanding. "So, the bar on this is clearly extremely high," Altman said. "The best thing we can do is to put this technology in the hands of people, talk about what it is capable of, what it's not, what we think is going to come, what we think might come, give our best advice about how society should decide to use this, say when we think it's important to not release something, which we also might get wrong, and build up that trust over time. But it is clear that this is going to be a very impactful technology and I think a lot of scrutiny is thus super warranted." Winfrey also asked Altman how he feels about being billed "the most powerful and perhaps most dangerous man on the planet." "It's definitely strange to hear you say that," Altman said. "I don't feel like the most powerful person or anything even close to say that." Winfrey, a veteran interviewer of almost four decades, challenged some of Altman's responses. "Just what we've seen thus far of people with nefarious ideas misusing it causes me a lot of concern," she said. "And yet when I sit with you, you're so calm, you're so relatable. It seems like everything's okay. Is that how you really feel?" "I don't want to give a false sense of security here," Altman responded. "I'm tremendously excited for the good. I think the good will be incredible, but there will be bad too, and we'll mitigate as much as we can. We have the whole field. But this technology will be misused, like every other technology before it. And we need to be clear-eyed about that, even though -- even though I'm so convinced that the upside will be so tremendous." Altman also said in the interview that he communicates with someone in the government "every few days" to build out the guardrails for technology. "One of the first things we need to do -- and this is now happening -- is to get the government to start figuring out how to do safety testing of these systems, like we do for aircraft or new medicines," he said. Altman's interview with Winfrey aired the same day OpenAI announced its new product, Strawberry or OpenAI o1, a generative AI model that the company says can handle complex questions by using more human-like reasoning. Since the debut of ChatGPT in 2022, OpenAI has become one of the most valuable startups in the world. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the company is in talks to raise $6.5 billion in its next funding round, attracting juggernaut investors like Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia. The funding would give OpenAI a $150 billion valuation.

ChatGPT's Sam Altman Says This Is the One Thing Keeps Him Up at Night

OpenAI was valued at $86 billion, but a Thursday Bloomberg report stated that the company intends to raise $6.5 billion at a $150 billion valuation. OpenAI announced its first AI model on Thursday that can reason, or solve complex problems on its own without copying the reasoning patterns of its training data, code-named Strawberry. That evening, the ChatGPT maker's CEO sat down with Oprah Winfrey in a special aired on ABC to discuss how he sees AI changing the world -- and his biggest fear about the technology. When Winfrey asked what keeps him up at night, Altman said it was "the rate of change in the world, in the economy" from AI. "We haven't seen it yet," Altman said. "And just because we haven't seen that yet doesn't mean we can get complacent." Related: ChatGPT's Creators Are Worried We Could Get Emotionally Attached to the AI Bot, Changing 'Social Norms' Even if ChatGPT reaches an ideal level of safety, OpenAI can't control how rapidly people adopt it and how it changes the world, Altman explained. ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app in the world in February 2023, hitting 100 million monthly active users within two months of launch. "People want more and better and there [are] some strong forces at play here," Altman said. OpenAI was valued at $86 billion, but a Thursday Bloomberg report stated that the company intends to raise $6.5 billion at a $150 billion valuation. The CEO of OpenAI competitor Anthropic estimated in July that it takes about $100 million at the moment to develop an AI model, but he anticipates the cost rising as high as $10 billion in the next few years. When asked where AI will take the world in the next decade, Altman says he sees the technology as a powerful force. "I hope that in 10 years we are -- all of us -- we are limited by what we can imagine," Altman said. "We have this AI that can help us figure out anything. We have abundant energy that can help us reconfigure stuff in the world." Altman gave the example of someone who wants to build a house. They could use AI to figure out what their dream home looks like and come up with ideas. Then the AI could invent robots that bring the vision to life by actually building the house. Related: I Designed My Dream Home For Free With an AI Architect -- Here's How It Works AI architecture is still in its early stages, but the technology is capable of generating floor plans and interior and exterior renders based on a prompt. A community of 3D-printed homes is also nearing completion in Texas, with 25% of units sold. Altman also personally ran into issues with a home he bought for $27 million in 2020. He filed a lawsuit in July against the developers. Winfrey's AI special episode with Altman and other AI leaders like Bill Gates aired on ABC on Thursday evening. It is currently available to watch in full on Hulu.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wants the government to safety test AI like it does aircraft and medicine

OpenAI chief Sam Altman called for more testing of artificial intelligence in an interview with Oprah for her new television special, "AI and the Future of Us," which aired Thursday evening. Altman, who co-founded and heads the AI startup behind popular generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, said the next step is for the government to start carrying out safety tests of the rapidly advancing new technology. "One of the first things we need to do -- and this is now happening -- is to get the government to start figuring out how to do safety testing of these systems, like we do for aircraft or new medicines," he said. "I personally, probably have a conversation with someone in the government every few days," he added. This contrasts with Altman and OpenAI's internal position on restrictions to innovation. In May, the company disbanded its "Superalignment" team, which was responsible for working on the problem of AI's existential dangers. The company said the team's work would be absorbed by other research efforts across OpenAI. Critics, including former employees, have warned that the company and its ambitions pose "serious risks." Ultimately, OpenAI is hoping to reach what's known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI -- a futuristic view of machines that can pretty much do anything just as well as humans. The special, which also included interviews with other experts, including Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates and FBI director Christopher Wray. It's now available to stream on Hulu (DIS). OpenAI is currently in talks to raise $6.5 billion from investors in a new funding round that would value the startup at $150 billion, Bloomberg reported. A deal allowing employees to sell stakes in the company valued OpenAI at $86 billion in late 2023, nearly triple what it was earlier in the year. This latest funding round would be its single biggest raise since it received $10 billion in backing from Microsoft back in January 2023, and could reportedly also include funding from Apple and Nvidia. For her part, Oprah stressed the importance of paying attention to the new technology and adapting to it as needed, given that AI -- although still in its early stages -- is probably here to stay. "AI is still beyond our control and to a great extent, our understanding," she said in prepared remarks at the start of the special. "But it is here, and we're going to be living with technology that can be our ally as well as our rival." "We are this planet's most adaptable creatures," she added. "We will adapt again. But keep your eyes on what's real. The stakes could not be higher." In a previous interview with the Washington Post, Winfrey said she hadn't used AI until sitting down with Altman. After the interview, however, she began "using it for everything." But the television star also expressed her concerns about the dangers of the technology, including its use to generate misinformation and deepfakes. "I don't have a lot of faith," she said, when it comes to regulating AI. "Everybody realizes there needs to be regulations. Everybody realizes that." "My fear is that, just like with automobiles and other technology that's moved us forward, so much damage can be done, so many lives impacted negatively before people wake up and actually decide, 'Oh, we need a seat belt on this thing. We need speed limits,'" she said. But she wasn't all doom and gloom. The positive impacts on education and medicine excite Winfrey, including the potential for children to have a personal tutor in an AI chatbot and helping doctors more quickly fill out paperwork to spend more dedicated time with their patients.

Oprah just had an AI special with Sam Altman and Bill Gates -- here are the highlights | TechCrunch

Late Thursday evening, Oprah Winfrey aired a special on AI, appropriately titled "AI and the Future of Us." Guests included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, tech influencer Marques Brownlee, and current FBI director Christopher Wray. The dominant tone was one of skepticism -- and wariness. Oprah noted in prepared remarks that the AI genie is out of the bottle, for better or worse, and that humanity will have to learn to live with the consequences. "AI is still beyond our control and to a great extent...our understanding," she said. "But it is here, and we're going to be living with technology that can be our ally as well as our rival ... We are this planet's most adaptable creatures. We will adapt again. But keep your eyes on what's real. The stakes could not be higher." Altman, Oprah's first interview of the night, made the questionable case that today's AI is learning concepts within the data it's trained on. "We are showing the system a thousand words in a sequence and asking it to predict what comes next," he told Oprah. "The system learns to predict, and then in there, it learns the underlying concepts." Many experts would disagree. AI systems like ChatGPT and o1, which OpenAI introduced on Thursday, do indeed predict the likeliest next words in a sentence. But they're simply statistical machines -- they learn how likely data is to occur based on patterns. They don't have intentionality; they're only making an informed guess. While Altman possibly overstated the capabilities of today's AI systems, he underlined the importance of figuring out how to safety-test AI systems. "One of the first things we need to do, and this is now happenin, is to get the government to start figuring out how to do safety testing of these systems, like we do for aircraft or new medicines," he said. "I personally probably have a conversation with someone in the government every few days." Altman's push for regulation may be self-interested. OpenAI has opposed the California AI safety bill known as SB 1047, saying that it'll "stifle innovation." Former OpenAI employees and AI experts like Geoffrey Hinton, however, have come out in support of the bill, arguing that it'd impose needed safeguards on AI development. Oprah also prodded Altman about his role as OpenAI's ringleader. She asked why people should trust him and he largely dodged the question, saying his company is trying to build trust over time. Previously, Altman said very directly that people should not to trust him or any one person to make sure AI is benefitting the world. The OpenAI CEO later said it was strange to hear Oprah ask if he was "the most powerful and dangerous man in the world," as a news headline suggested. He disagreed, but said he felt a responsibility to nudge AI in a positive direction for humanity. Predictions and guesses can get you pretty far, however, as AI-powered video generators like OpenAI's Sora demonstrate. At one point during the special, Brownlee showed Oprah sample footage from Sora. "Now, you can still kind of look at pieces of this and tell something's not quite right," he said. "No, I can't," Oprah replied. The showcase served as a segue to an interview with Wray, who recounted the moment when he first became familiar with AI deepfake tech. "I was in a conference room, and a bunch of [FBI] folks got together to show me how AI-enhanced deepfakes can be created," Wray said. "And they had created a video of me saying things I had never said before and would never say." Wray talked about the increasing prevalence of AI-driven sextortion. According to cybersecurity company ESET, there was a 178% increase in sextortion cases between 2022 and 2023, driven in part by AI tech. "Somebody posing as a peer targets a teenager," Wray said, then use AI-generated compromising pictures to convince the kid to send real pictures in return. In fact, it's some guy behind a keyboard in Nigeria, and once they have the images, they threaten to blackmail the kid and say, if you don't pay up, we're going to share these images that will ruin your life." Wray also touched on disinformation around the upcoming U.S. presidential election. While asserting that it "wasn't time for panic," he stressed that it was incumbent on "everyone in America" to "bring an intensified sense of focus and caution on the use of AI" and how AI "can be used by bad guys against all of us." "We're finding all too often that something on social media that looks like Bill from Topeka or Mary from Dayton is actually, you know, some Russian or Chinese intelligence officer on the outskirts of Beijing or Moscow," Wray said. Indeed, a Statista poll found that more than third of U.S. respondents saw misleading information -- or what they suspected to be misinformation -- about key topics toward the end of 2023. This year, misleading AI-generated images of candidates VP Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump have garnered millions of views on social networks including X. For a techno-optimistic change of pace, Oprah interviewed Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who expressed a hope that AI will supercharge the fields of education and medicine. "AI is like a third person sitting in [a medical appointment,] doing a transcript, suggesting a prescription," Gates said. "And so instead of the doctor facing a computer screen, they're engaging with you, and the software is making sure there's a really good transcript." Gates ignored the potential for bias from poor training, however. One recent study demonstrated that speech recognition systems from leading tech companies were twice as likely to incorrectly transcribe audio from Black speakers as opposed to white speakers. Other research has shown that AI systems reinforce long-held, untrue beliefs that there are biological differences between Black and white people -- untruths that lead clinicians to misdiagnose health problems. In the classroom, Gates said, AI can be "always available" and "understand how to motivate you ... whatever your level of knowledge is." That's not exactly how many classrooms see it. Last summer, schools and colleges rushed to ban ChatGPT over plagiarism and misinformation fears. Since then, some have reversed their bans. But not all are convinced of GenAI's potential for good, pointing to surveys like the U.K. Safer Internet Centre's, which found that over half of kids (53%) report having seen people their age use GenAI in a negative way -- for example creating believable false information or images used to upset someone. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) late last year pushed for governments to regulate the use of GenAI in education, including implementing age limits for users and guardrails on data protection and user privacy.

Sam Altman tells Oprah he talks about AI with someone in government every few days

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Altman stressed the importance of partnerships between the companies creating AI and the government, citing an immediate need for safety precautions. "One of the first things we need to do -- and this is now happening -- is to get the government to start figuring out how to do safety testing of these systems, like we do for aircraft or new medicines," Altman said. "If we can get good at that now, we'll have an easier time figuring out exactly what the regulatory framework is later," he added. In OpenAI's quest to do just that, Altman said he frequently communicates with different branches of government. The founder said his company is in contact with "a lot of people" in the executive branch and "dozens of people" in Congress. Last month, OpenAI and Anthropic signed a deal allowing the government access to test and evaluate their artificial intelligence models. The move comes amid increasing cries for regulations as the technology rapidly advances. Altman said his conversations with government leaders primarily focus on how the US can be a global leader in safe AI, a topic that leads to discussions of building enough data centers, producing AI chips, creating a geopolitical strategy around AI, conducting safety tests on the technology, the economic impacts of AI, and collaborating with other governments. In August, the United States Agency for International Development became the first federal customer of OpenAI, striking a deal to use the company's ChatGPT Enterprise service. The move was largely seen as part of OpenAI's aim to bring its products to the public sector. However, in California, OpenAI has opposed an AI safety bill that has divided the tech sector, saying it will "stifle innovation. " People like Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "godfather of AI," back the bill that would add more regulation to AI.

Oprah says she's excited by the possibilities for AI in education and medicine

It wasn't until after meeting one of the most important people in artificial intelligence that Oprah Winfrey used the tech for the first time -- but now she says she's optimistic over its potential. In an interview with the Washington Post (AMZN), the talk show host said she's excited for what AI will mean for education and medicine. This all comes ahead of her televised interview with OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman, which airs on Thursday. "I'm excited that every child will be able to have their own personal tutor that understands them and works at their pace, and that they can feel seen and validated," Winfrey said. In the medical field, Winfrey said she sees an opportunity for AI to help doctors make more time to connect with patients. "All my friends in the medical field have complained for years about how so much of being a physician is clerical," Winfrey said, referring to filling out forms, paperwork, and insurance. "So being able to actually spend time and give attention to your patients, touch them and be with them and actually see them is going to change so much." Despite seeing "positives" with the technology, Winfrey said she is also concerned about how it can be used to scam people, and said people will "have to develop a suspicion muscle," about whether what they are seeing is real, and question where it is coming from. "I just know that that's no way to live," Winfrey said. "I mean, there's no peace in suspicion." Winfrey also said she doesn't have much faith in lawmakers to regulate AI "until it's too late." However, she said she hopes her interview with Altman "will be an alert." The interview is part of an ABC (DIS) television special called "AI and the Future of Us," which will feature interviews with other experts including Bill Gates and FBI director Christopher Wray. You can tune in Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.

Oprah Winfrey discusses her experience using AI: 'We should honor it'

Winfrey takes a deep dive into the technology in a new ABC primetime special. Oprah Winfrey is offering her take and sharing her experience on artificial intelligence ahead of her ABC Primetime special, "AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special." Speaking to ABC News' Rebecca Jarvis in an interview with "Good Morning America" which aired on Thursday, the multi-hyphenate media mogul said "we are in for the ride of our lives" with the technology. "Life for all of us is about to be very different," she said. Winfrey told Jarvis she has always seen herself as "the surrogate viewer" of the topics she explores AI and understands that, if she is curious to understand something she isn't the only one. "If I don't know the answer, I know that the other millions of people who are watching are feeling the same," she said, adding that her first encounter with the AI didn't happen until her first conversation with Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT. She continued, "And after he was telling me about all the things that I could do, I was saying, 'okay, don't be scared. Don't be scared. You can get the ChatGPT app.'" Winfrey shared her first experience with the technology was asking for AirBnb listings for a friend. "And it was miraculous to me that before you can practically finish the requests, the answer has come back to you," she said. In the new ABC primetime special, Winfrey takes a deep dive into AI by exploring "the profound impact of artificial intelligence on people's daily lives, demystifying the technology and empowering viewers to understand and navigate the rapidly evolving AI future," according to a press release. In addition to Altman, Winfrey will also interview Microsoft Co-Founder and Chair of the Gates Foundation Bill Gates, YouTube creator and technologist Marques Brownlee, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, among others. Hoping to offer viewers a crash course on AI during the special, Winfrey told "GMA" her biggest question going into the conversations with the experts would be, "what is the possibility and what's the peril? What do we need to be doing now?" "So what I'm thinking is we need to get ahead and not wait until so many lives are impacted negatively or damaged or destroyed," she explained. "And I think because it's here and here to stay, we need to develop a new sense of muscle for discerning what is real and what is not." Winfrey also shared her opinion and advice for those who have fear over the technology and have yet to become a user. "I don't think we should be scared," she said. "I think we should be disciplined and we should honor it and have a reverence for what is to come and respect, because I think it's going to change in ways that are unimaginable for the good." However, she also reminded the public that "there's the yin and yang of everything." "And so we need to do whatever we can so that we are not in the same position that we are now with social media," she added. "Now is the time." "AI and the Future of Us" will premiere on Thursday, Sept. 12 on ABC at 8 pm E.T. and available to stream on Hulu the next day.

Oprah Winfrey Is Hosting an AI Special Tonight: What We Know

Oprah Winfrey is planning to tackle the sprawling topic of artificial intelligence in a one-hour special airing on ABC tonight. Her new program, AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special, will include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and technology reviewer Marques Brownlee. "The reason why I wanted to do this special is because I'm right where most of you all are with AI," Winfrey said in an Instagram Reel posted earlier this week. "You hear it all the time and you hear it's going to change our lives, and we are aware of it on our phones and you're aware of it in your cars and you're aware of it for certain areas of your life, but what is really coming? What is happening with AI?" In addition to people working in the AI industry or around it, the show also includes FBI Director Christopher Wray, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson and the co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology, who will presumably discuss the risks AI poses to creators and to humans in general. The AI special is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, Sept. 12, and it will be made available the next day on Hulu. Critics are already taking the program to task for its guest list, which some are saying will tilt the content in favor of promoting AI instead of taking a hard look at its dangers. Among them are artist and activist Karla Ortiz, who posted a thread on X asking Winfrey to rethink the special's content. In an X post, Los Angeles Times tech columnist and Blood in the Machine newsletter writer Brian Merchant called the special an "extended sales pitch for the generative AI industry at the moment when its fortunes are flagging and the AI bubble is threatening to burst." Winfrey also faced criticism back in March when her last special, focused on the weight-loss drug Ozempic, aired on ABC. In a case of AI imitating life, a video purporting to show Winfrey interviewing Sam Altman for the special actually shows an animated version of Winfrey interviewing herself before cutting to a cartoon figure who looks more (but not very much) like Sam Altman.