OpenAI focusing on superintelligence, CEO claims

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that the company now has a fundamental understanding of how to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) and is shifting its focus towards superintelligence.  

Altman highlighted that superintelligence could reshape the world and accelerate scientific discovery and innovation to a point beyond human capabilities. 

While the CEO did not share any roadmaps, he said that the world will see the first glimpse of the technology in the next few years. OpenAI has also not teased any AI models with AGI capabilities so far.

OpenAI CEO Emphasises on Superintelligence

In his personal blog, Altman published a New Year-focused post in which he looked back at the company's journey and shared where it is headed in the near future. The OpenAI CEO also highlighted that the company was incepted nine years ago as a non-profit research lab and did not become relevant in the tech industry until the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. He also revealed that the AI chatbot was initially named “Chat With GPT-3.5.”

Looking at the future, Altman claimed that the company had gained a traditional and fundamental understanding of building AGI systems and added that the first AI agents might join the workforce in 2025. Notably, it is believed that a multi-step general-purpose AI agent would require some level of AGI to tackle complex, real-world tasks. OpenAI is yet to release its first AI agent.

“We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future. With superintelligence, we can do anything else. 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,” he added.

After making the bold claim, the OpenAI CEO assured that despite it sounding like science fiction, the company is confident that it will reach superintelligence in the next few years. Altman also emphasised the need to “act with great care” with superintelligence while maximising broad benefit and empowerment, which was important.