Future
Sam Altman on Microsoft, Trump and Musk
The OpenAI C.E.O. spoke with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the DealBook Summit.
Since kicking off the artificial intelligence boom with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, OpenAI has amassed more than 300 million weekly users and a $157 billion valuation. Its C.E.O., Sam Altman, addressed whether that staggering pace of growth can continue at the DealBook Summit last week.
Altman pushed back on assertions that progress in A.I. is becoming slower and more expensive; on reports that the company’s relationship with its biggest investor, Microsoft, is fraying; and on concerns that Elon Musk, who founded an A.I. company last year, may use his relationship with President-elect Donald Trump to hurt competitors.
Altman said that artificial general intelligence, the point at which artificial intelligence can do almost anything that a human brain can do, will arrive “sooner than most people in the world think.” Here are five highlights from the conversation.
On Elon Musk
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, has become one of its major antagonists. He has sued the company, accusing it of departing from its founding mission as a nonprofit, and started a competing startup called xAI. On Friday, OpenAI said Musk had wanted to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company in 2017 and walked away when he didn’t get majority equity.
Altman called the change in the relationship “tremendously sad.” He continued:
Altman said of Musk’s close relationship with Trump:
On OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft
Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor, has put more than $13 billion into the company and has an exclusive license to its raw technologies. Altman once called the relationship “the best bromance in tech,” but The Times and others have reported that the partnership has become strained as OpenAI seeks more and cheaper access to computing power and Microsoft has made moves to diversify its access to A.I. technology. OpenAI expects to lose $5 billion this year because of the steep costs of developing A.I.
At the DealBook Summit, Altman said of the relationship with Microsoft, “I don’t think we’re disentangling. I will not pretend that there are no misalignments or challenges.” He added:
Some of OpenAI’s own products compete with those of partners that depend on its technologies. On whether that presents a conflict of interest, Altman said:
On whether making progress in A.I. development was becoming more expensive and slower, as some experts have suggested, he doubled down on a message he’d previously posted on social media: “There is no wall.” Andrew asked the same question of Sundar Pichai, the Google C.E.O., which we’ll recap in tomorrow’s newsletter.
