Open Dialog with Sam Altman
In June 2023, Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, visited a university campus in Tokyo and answered questions from young people. This is an excerpt.
Q1 What advice would you give to someone with a great idea who wants to turn it into reality?
A1 Just go for it! People will misunderstand you for a long time. When we started working on OpenAI, people said AGI was 100 years away, if ever, probably never. That was discouraging but we continued to work on it. We believed it was important and we knew it wasn’t against natural law. We thought, “We are likely to fail, but if we succeed, it will be a big deal.” At first, we didn’t know exactly how we were going to build AGI, but we knew where we wanted to go. Gradually we started to see how to reach there. So if you know what you want to work on, just go do it.
Q2 What kind of impact will AI have on the job market?
A2 Some jobs will go away, but I don’t think it’s going to cause as much job loss as people expect. Through any previous technology revolution, some jobs disappeared, but there were always new jobs. The jobs of the future are not imaginable for us today. If we look at them, we will say, “Well, that’s not real work!” The same is true for people from thousands of years ago. If they look at the jobs today, they will say the same thing.
Q3 I’m concerned about AI’s impact on poor people in the world. Will they be at a disadvantage?
A3 I think this technology revolution will improve the situation for everyone but it’ll impact poor people the most. If we can make medical advice close to free, that will help poor people more than rich people. Similarly, if everyone can receive a good education almost free, that will help poor people more. So, I think this technology has the power to make people more equal.
Let me just talk for one moment before closing this session. You’re all a very lucky generation. This incredible revolution that has just started doesn’t come along very often. I want you to use this technology. Learn about it, and it’s going to be valuable to you in the future—you’re all going to have an incredibly great time.
In June 2023, Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, visited a university campus in Tokyo and answered questions from young people. This is an excerpt.
Q1 What advice would you give to someone with a great idea who wants to turn it into reality?
A1 Just go for it! People will misunderstand you for a long time. When we started working on OpenAI, people said AGI was 100 years away, if ever, probably never. That was discouraging but we continued to work on it. We believed it was important and we knew it wasn’t against natural law. We thought, “We are likely to fail, but if we succeed, it will be a big deal.” At first, we didn’t know exactly how we were going to build AGI, but we knew where we wanted to go. Gradually we started to see how to reach there. So if you know what you want to work on, just go do it.
Q2 What kind of impact will AI have on the job market?
A2 Some jobs will go away, but I don’t think it’s going to cause as much job loss as people expect. Through any previous technology revolution, some jobs disappeared, but there were always new jobs. The jobs of the future are not imaginable for us today. If we look at them, we will say, “Well, that’s not real work!” The same is true for people from thousands of years ago. If they look at the jobs today, they will say the same thing.
Q3 I’m concerned about AI’s impact on poor people in the world. Will they be at a disadvantage?
A3 I think this technology revolution will improve the situation for everyone but it’ll impact poor people the most. If we can make medical advice close to free, that will help poor people more than rich people. Similarly, if everyone can receive a good education almost free, that will help poor people more. So, I think this technology has the power to make people more equal.
Let me just talk for one moment before closing this session. You’re all a very lucky generation. This incredible revolution that has just started doesn’t come along very often. I want you to use this technology. Learn about it, and it’s going to be valuable to you in the future—you’re all going to have an incredibly great time.