The Possibilities of AI [Entire Talk] - Sam Altman (OpenAI)

[Music]

welcome to the entrepreneurial thought

leader seminar at Stanford

University this is the Stanford seminar

for aspiring entrepreneurs ETL is

brought to you by stvp the Stanford

entrepreneurship engineering center and

basis The Business Association of

Stanford entrepreneurial students I'm

rvie balani a lecturer in the management

science and engineering department and

the director of Alchemist and

accelerator for Enterprise startups and

today I have the pleasure of welcoming

Sam Altman to ETL

um Sam is the co-founder and CEO of open

AI open is not a word I would use to

describe the seats in this class and so

I think by virtue of that that everybody

already play knows open AI but for those

who don't openai is the research and

deployment company behind chat gbt Dolly

and Sora um Sam's life is a pattern of

breaking boundaries and transcending

what's possible both for himself and for

the world he grew up in the midwest in

St Louis came to Stanford took ETL as an

undergrad um for any and we we held on

to Stanford or Sam for two years he

studied computer science and then after

his sophomore year he joined the

inaugural class of Y combinator with a

Social Mobile app company called looped

um that then went on to go raise money

from Sequoia and others he then dropped

out of Stanford spent seven years on

looped which got Acquired and then he

rejoined Y combinator in an operational

role he became the president of Y

combinator from 2014 to 2019 and then in

2015 he co-founded open aai as a

nonprofit research lab with the mission

to build general purpose artificial

intelligence that benefits all Humanity

open aai has set the record for the

fastest growing app in history with the

launch of chat gbt which grew to 100

million active users just two months

after launch Sam was named one of

times's 100 most influential people in

the world he was also named times CEO of

the year in 2023 and he was also most

recently added to Forbes list of the

world's billionaires um Sam lives with

his husband in San Francisco and splits

his time between San Francisco and Napa

and he's also a vegetarian and so with

that please join me in welcoming Sam

Altman to the stage

and in full disclosure that was a longer

introduction than Sam probably would

have liked um brevity is the soul of wit

um and so we'll try to make the

questions more concise but this is this

is this is also Sam's birth week it's it

was his birthday on Monday and I

mentioned that just because I think this

is an auspicious moment both in terms of

time you're 39 now and also place you're

at Stanford in ETL that I would be

remiss if this wasn't sort of a moment

of just some reflection and I'm curious

if you reflect back on when you were

half a lifee younger when you were 19 in

ETL um if there were three words to

describe what your felt sense was like

as a Stanford undergrad what would those

three words be it's always hard

questions

um I was like ex uh you want three words

only okay uh you can you can go more Sam

you're you're the king of brevity uh

excited optimistic and curious okay and

what would be your three words

now I guess the same which is terrific

so there's been a constant thread even

though the world has changed and you

know a lot has changed in the last 19

years but that's going to pale in

comparison what's going to happen in the

next 19 yeah and so I need to ask you

for your advice if you were a Stanford

undergrad today so if you had a Freaky

Friday moment tomorrow you wake up and

suddenly you're 19 in inside of Stanford

undergrad knowing everything you know

what would you do would you drop be very

happy um I would feel like I was like

coming of age at the luckiest time

um like in several centuries probably I

think the degree to which the world is

is going to change and the the

opportunity to impact that um starting a

company doing AI research any number of

things is is like quite remarkable I

think this is probably the best time to

start I yeah I think I would say this I

think this is probably the best time to

start a companies since uh the internet

at least and maybe kind of like in the

history of technology I think with what

you can do with AI is like going to just

get more remarkable every year and the

greatest companies get created at times

like this the most impactful new

products get built at times like this so

um I would feel incredibly lucky uh and

I would be determined to make the most

of it and I would go figure out like

where I wanted to contribute and do it

and do you have a bias on where would

you contribute would you want to stay as

a student um would and if so would you

major in a certain major giving the pace

of of change probably I would not stay

as a student but only cuz like I didn't

and I think it's like reasonable to

assume people kind of are going to make

the same decisions they would make again

um I think staying as a student is a

perfectly good thing to do I just I it

would probably not be what I would have

picked no this is you this is you so you

have the Freaky Friday moment it's you

you're reborn and as a 19-year-old and

would you

yeah what I think I would again like I

think this is not a surprise cuz people

kind of are going to do what they're

going to do I think I would go work on

research and and and where might you do

that Sam I think I mean obviously I have

a bias towards open eye but I think

anywhere I could like do meaningful AI

research I would be like very thrilled

about but you'd be agnostic if that's

Academia or Private Industry

um I say this with sadness I think I

would pick

industry realistically um I think it's I

think to you kind of need to be the

place with so much compute M MH okay and

um if you did join um on the research

side would you join so we had kazer here

last week who was a big advocate of not

being a Founder but actually joining an

existing companies sort of learn learn

the chops for the for the students that

are wrestling with should I start a

company now at 19 or 20 or should I go

join another entrepreneurial either

research lab or Venture what advice

would you give them well since he gave

the case to join a company I'll give the

other one um which is I think you learn

a lot just starting a company and if

that's something you want to do at some

point there's this thing Paul Graham

says but I think it's like very deeply

true there's no pre-startup like there

is Premed you kind of just learn how to

run a startup by running a startup and

if if that's what you're pretty sure you

want to do you may as well jump in and

do it and so let's say so if somebody

wants to start a company they want to be

in AI um what do you think are the

biggest near-term challenges that you're

seeing in AI that are the ripest for a

startup and just to scope that what I

mean by that are what are the holes that

you think are the top priority needs for

open AI that open AI will not solve in

the next three years um yeah

so I think this is like a very

reasonable question to ask in some sense

but I think it's I'm not going to answer

it because I think you should

never take this kind of advice about

what startup to start ever from anyone

um I think by the time there's something

that is like the kind of thing that's

obvious enough that me or somebody else

will sit up here and say it it's

probably like not that great of a

startup idea and I totally understand

the impulse and I remember when I was

just like asking people like what

startup should I start

um but I I think like one of the most

important things I believe about having

an impactful career is you have to chart

your own course if if the thing that

you're thinking about is something that

someone else is going to do anyway or

more likely something that a lot of

people are going to do anyway

um you should be like somewhat skeptical

of that and I think a really good muscle

to build is coming up with the ideas

that are not the obvious ones to say so

I don't know what the really important

idea is that I'm not thinking of right

now but I'm very sure someone in this

room does it knows what that answer is

um and I think learning to trust

yourself and come up with your own ideas

and do the very like non-consensus

things like when we started open AI that

was an extremely non-consensus thing to

do and now it's like the very obvious

thing to do um now I only have the

obvious ideas CU I'm just like stuck in

this one frame but I'm sure you all have

the other

ones but are there so can I ask it

another way and I don't know if this is

fair or not but are what questions then

are you wrestling with that no one else

is talking

about how to build really big computers

I mean I think other people are talking

about that but we're probably like

looking at it through a lens that no one

else is quite imagining yet um

I mean we're we're definitely wrestling

with how we when we make not just like

grade school or middle schooler level

intelligence but like PhD level

intelligence and Beyond the best way to

put that into a product the best way to

have a positive impact with that on

society and people's lives we don't know

the answer to that yet so I think that's

like a pretty important thing to figure

out okay and can we continue on that

thread then of how to build really big

computers if that's really what's on

your mind can you share I know there's

been a lot of speculation and probably a

lot of here say too about um the

semiconductor Foundry Endeavor that you

are reportedly embarking on um can you

share what would make what what's the

vision what would make this different

than it's not just foundies although

that that's part of it it's like if if

you believe which we increasingly do at

this point that AI infrastructure is

going to be one of the most important

inputs to the Future this commodity that

everybody's going to want and that is

energy data centers chips chip design

new kinds of networks it's it's how we

look at that entire ecosystem um and how

we make a lot more of that and I don't

think it'll work to just look at one

piece or another but we we got to do the

whole thing okay so there's multiple big

problems yeah um I think like just this

is the Arc of human technological

history as we build bigger and more

complex systems and does it gross so you

know in terms of just like the compute

cost uh correct me if I'm wrong but chat

gbt 3 was I've heard it was $100 million

to do the model um and it was 100 175

billion parameters gbt 4 was cost $400

million with 10x the parameters it was

almost 4X the cost but 10x the

parameters correct me adjust me you know

it I I do know it but I won oh you can

you're invited to this is Stanford Sam

okay um uh but the the even if you don't

want to correct the actual numbers if

that's directionally correct um does the

cost do you think keep growing with each

subsequent yes and does it keep growing

multiplicatively uh probably I mean and

so the question then becomes how do we

how do you capitalize

that well look I I kind of think

that giving people really capable tools

and letting them figure out how they're

going to use this to build the future is

a super good thing to do and is super

valuable and I am super willing to bet

on the Ingenuity of you all and

everybody else in the world to figure

out what to do about this so there is

probably some more business-minded

person than me at open AI somewhere that

is worried about how much we're spending

um but I kind of

don't okay so that doesn't cross it so

you

know open ey is phenomenal chat gbt is

phenomenal um everything else all the

other models are

phenomenal it burned you've earned $520

million of cash last year that doesn't

concern you in terms of thinking about

the economic model of how do you

actually where's going to be the

monetization source well first of all

that's nice of you to say but Chachi PT

is not phenomenal like Chachi PT is like

mildly embarrassing at best um gp4 is

the dumbest model any of you will ever

ever have to use again by a lot um but

you know it's like important to ship

early and often and we believe in

iterative deployment like if we go build

AGI in a basement and then you know the

world is like kind

of blissfully walking blindfolded along

um I don't think that's like I don't

think that makes us like very good

neighbors um so I think it's important

given what we believe is going to happen

to express our view about what we

believe is going to happen um but more

than that the way to do it is to put the

product in people's hands um

and let Society co-evolve with the

technology let Society tell us what it

collectively and people individually

want from the technology how to

productize this in a way that's going to

be useful um where the model works

really well where it doesn't work really

well um give our leaders and

institutions time to react um give

people time to figure out how to

integrate this into their lives to learn

how to use the tool um sure some of you

all like cheat on your homework with it

but some of you all probably do like

very amazing amazing wonderful things

with it too um and as each generation

goes on uh I think that will expand

and and that means that we ship

imperfect products um but we we have a

very tight feedback loop and we learn

and we get better um and it does kind of

suck to ship a product that you're

embarrassed about but it's much better

than the alternative um and in this case

in particular where I think we really

owe it to society to deploy tively

um one thing we've learned is that Ai

and surprise don't go well together

people don't want to be surprised people

want a gradual roll out and the ability

to influence these systems um that's how

we're going to do it and there may

be there could totally be things in the

future that would change where we' think

iterative deployment isn't such a good

strategy um but it does feel like the

current best approach that we have and I

think we've gained a lot um from from

doing this and you know hopefully s the

larger world has gained something too

whether we burn 500 million a year or 5

billion or 50 billion a year I don't

care I genuinely don't as long as we can

I think stay on a trajectory where

eventually we create way more value for

society than that and as long as we can

figure out a way to pay the bills like

we're making AGI it's going to be

expensive it's totally worth it and so

and so do you have a I hear you do you

have a vision in 2030 of what if I say

you crushed it Sam it's 2030 you crushed

it what does the world look like to

you

um you know maybe in some very important

ways not that different uh

like we will be back here there will be

like a new set of students we'll be

talking about how startups are really

important and technology is really cool

we'll have this new great tool in the

world it'll

feel it would feel amazing if we got to

teleport forward six years today and

have this thing that was

like smarter than humans in many

subjects and could do these complicated

tasks for us and um you know like we

could have these like complicated

program written or This research done or

this business

started uh and yet like the Sun keeps

Rising the like people keep having their

human dramas life goes on so sort of

like super different in some sense that

we now have like abundant intelligence

at our fingertips

and then in some other sense like not

different at all okay and you mentioned

artificial general intellig AGI

artificial general intelligence and in

in a previous interview you you define

that as software that could mimic the

median competence of a or the competence

of a median human for tasks yeah um can

you give me is there time if you had to

do a best guess of when you think or

arrange you feel like that's going to

happen I think we need a more precise

definition of AGI for the timing

question um because at at this point

even with like the definition you just

gave which is a reasonable one there's

that's your I'm I'm I'm paring back what

you um said in an interview well that's

good cuz I'm going to criticize myself

okay um it's it's it's it's too loose of

a definition there's too much room for

misinterpretation in there um to I think

be really useful or get at what people

really want like I kind of think what

people want to know when they say like

what's the timeline to AGI is like when

is the world going to be super different

when is the rate of change going to get

super high when is the way the economy

Works going to be really different like

when does my life change

and that for a bunch of reasons may be

very different than we think like I can

totally imagine a world where we build

PhD level intelligence in any area and

you know we can make researchers way

more productive maybe we can even do

some autonomous research and in some

sense

like that sounds like it should change

the world a lot and I can imagine that

we do that and then we can detect no

change in global GDP growth for like

years afterwards something like that um

which is very strange to think about and

it was not my original intuition of how

this was all going to go so I don't know

how to give a precise timeline of when

we get to the Milestone people care

about but when we get to systems that

are way more capable than we have right

now one year and every year after and

that I think is the important point so

I've given up on trying to give the AGI

timeline but I think every year for the

next many we have dramatically more

capable systems every year um I want to

ask about the dangers of of AGI um and

gang I know there's tons of questions

for Sam in a few moments I'll be turning

it up so start start thinking about your

questions um a big focus on Stanford

right now is ethics and um can we talk

about you know how you perceive the

dangers of AGI and specifically do you

think the biggest Danger from AGI is

going to come from a cataclysmic event

which you know makes all the papers or

is it going to be more subtle and

pernicious sort of like you know like

how everybody has ADD right now from you

know using Tik Tok um is it are you more

concerned about the subtle dangers or

the cataclysmic dangers um or neither

I'm more concerned about the subtle

dangers because I think we're more

likely to overlook those the cataclysmic

dangers uh a lot of people talk about

and a lot of people think about and I

don't want to minimize those I think

they're really serious and a real thing

um but I think we at least know to look

out for that and spend a lot of effort

um the example you gave of everybody

getting add from Tik Tok or whatever I

don't think we knew to look out for and

that that's a really hard the the

unknown unknowns are really hard and so

I'd worry more about those although I

worry about both and are they unknown

unknowns are there any that you can name

that you're particularly worried about

well then I would kind of they'd be

unknown unknown um you can

I I am am worried just about so so even

though I think in the short term things

change less than we think as with other

major Technologies in the long term I

think they change more than we think and

I am worried about what rate Society can

adapt to something so new and how long

it'll take us to figure out the new

social contract versus how long we get

to do it um I'm worried about that okay

um I'm going to I'm going to open up so

I want to ask you a question about one

of the key things that we're now trying

to in

into the curriculum as things change so

rapidly is resilience that's really good

and and you

know and the Cornerstone of resilience

uh is is self-awareness and so and I'm

wondering um if you feel that you're

pretty self-aware of your driving

motivations as you are embarking on this

journey so first of all I think um I

believe resilience can be taught uh I

believe it has long been one of the most

important life skills um and in the

future I think in the over the next

couple of decades I think resilience and

adaptability will be more important

theyve been in a very long time so uh I

think that's really great um on the

self-awareness

question I think I'm self aware but I

think like everybody thinks they're

self-aware and whether I am or not is

sort of like hard to say from the inside

and can I ask you sort of the questions

that we ask in our intro classes on self

awareness sure it's like the Peter duer

framework so what do you think your

greatest strengths are

Sam

uh I think I'm not great at many things

but I'm good at a lot of things and I

think breath has become an underrated

thing in the world everyone gets like

hypers specialized so if you're good at

a lot of things you can seek connections

across them um I think you can then kind

of come up with the ideas that are

different than everybody else has or

that sort of experts in one area have

and what are your most dangerous

weaknesses

um most dangerous that's an interesting

framework for it

uh I think I have like a general bias to

be too Pro technology just cuz I'm

curious and I want to see where it goes

and I believe that technology is on the

whole a net good thing but I think that

is a worldview that has overall served

me and others well and thus got like a

lot of positive

reinforcement and is not always true and

when it's not been true has been like

pretty bad for a lot of people and then

Harvard psychologist David mcland has

this framework that all leaders are

driven by one of three Primal needs a

need for affiliation which is a need to

be liked a need for achievement and a

need for power if you had to rank list

those what would be

yours I think at various times in my

career all of those I think there these

like levels that people go through

um at this point I feel driven by like

wanting to do something useful and

interesting okay and I definitely had

like the money and the power and the

status phases okay and then where were

you when you most last felt most like

yourself I I

always and then one last question and

what are you most excited about with