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Sam Altman

What Sam Altman thinks about AGI

@sam-altman · 50 positions · 0 changes of mind

Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI; previously president of Y Combinator.

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

Sam Altman did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

8 dated positions, 2024 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Sam Altman has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingManaging the transition to a world with abundant and powerful AI should be one of the highest priorities in the world.

    Their wordsManaging the transition to a world with abundant and powerful AI to optimize for safety and benefits to people should be one of the highest priorities in the world.

    ↗@sama on Xx.com

    Interesting
  2. 2 years earlier

  3. Our readingThe road to AGI is going to be a giant power struggle, and anyone building it should expect that rather than hope to avoid it.

    Their wordsThe road to AGI should be a giant power struggle. The world should… Well, not should. I expect that to be the case.

    ↗Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419youtube.com 1st of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingThe board of a nonprofit answers to no one but itself, and the board governing the road to AGI ought instead to answer to the world as a whole.

    Their wordsIn this case, and I think one of the things with our structure that we maybe should have thought about more than we did is that the board of a nonprofit has, unless you put other rules in place, quite a lot of power. They don’t really answer to anyone but themselves. And there’s ways in which that’s good, but what we’d really like is for the board of OpenAI to answer to the world as a whole, as much as that’s a practical thing.

    ↗Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419youtube.com 2nd of 20 in this recording

    OpenAI

    Interesting

  7. Our readingShort timelines with a slow takeoff is the safest of the four ways AGI could arrive, and the quadrant we should be trying to land in.

    Their wordsAnd I’ve said for a long time that you think of a quadrant of slow timelines for the start of AGI, long timelines, and then a short takeoff or a fast takeoff. I think short timeline, slow takeoff is the safest quadrant and the one I’d most like us to be in. But I do want to make sure we get that slow takeoff.

    ↗Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419youtube.com 12th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our readingIt would be depressing to reach AGI and still need a human body to get anything done in the physical world, so robots have to be part of the transition.

    Their wordsI think it’s depressing if we have AGI and the only way to get things done in the physical world is to make a human go do it. So I really hope that as part of this transition, as this phase change, we also get humanoid robots or some sort of physical world robots.

    ↗Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419youtube.com 15th of 20 in this recording

    robotics

    Interesting

  11. Our readingAsking when AGI will arrive is a poorly formed question; the answerable question is when a system will be able to do a particular capability.

    Their wordsI used to love to speculate on that question. I have realized since that I think it’s very poorly formed, and that people use extremely different definitions for what AGI is. So I think it makes more sense to talk about when we’ll build systems that can do capability X or Y or Z, rather than when we fuzzily cross this one mile marker.

    ↗Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419youtube.com 16th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  13. Our readingNo company should be making the decisions about AGI, and no one person should have super-voting control of one; governments have to put rules of the road in place.

    Their wordsI continue to not want super-voting control over OpenAI. I never have. Never have had it, never wanted it. Even after all this craziness, I still don’t want it. I continue to think that no company should be making these decisions, and that we really need governments to put rules of the road in place.

    ↗Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419youtube.com 18th of 20 in this recording

    OpenAI

    Interesting

  15. Our readingWhat any individual human can do comes from collectively built scaffolding rather than from the individual, and AGI may turn out to be more like that scaffolding than like a single brain.

    Their wordsBut what you have is this scaffolding that we all contributed to built on top of. No one person is going to go build the iPhone. No one person is going to go discover all of science, and yet you get to use it. And that gives you incredible ability.

    ↗Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419youtube.com 20th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting