OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says first AI agents may ‘join the workforce’ in 2025, to develop superintelligence

Says there is still so much to understand, still so much we don’t know, and it’s still so early

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, says in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce”. “We continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great, broadly-distributed outcomes,” Altman wrote in a blog post marking the second birthday of ChatGPT.

Stating that nine years ago, they had no idea what they were eventually going to become, he said, “even now, we only sort of know. AI development has taken many twists and turns and we expect more in the future.”

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The OpenAI CEO says they are looking at a new product superintelligence in the 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.”

Sounds like science fiction, and a crazy to even talk about it? Altman says they’ve been there before and they are OK with being there again. “We’re pretty confident that in the next few years, everyone will see what we see, and that the need to act with great care, while still maximizing broad benefit and empowerment, is so important.”

Altman justifies the ‘crazy’ idea too. “Given the possibilities of our work, OpenAI cannot be a normal company. We started OpenAI almost nine years ago because we believed that AGI was possible, and that it could be the most impactful technology in human history. At the time, very few people cared, and if they did, it was mostly because they thought we had no chance of success,” he says.