Founder of OpenAI Sam Altman How can humanity embrace the prosperous new era of intelligence in the age of AI

In the coming decades, we will be able to achieve many things that seemed like magic to our grandparents. With the rapid advancement of technology, we are on the cusp of an intelligence revolution, with artificial intelligence (AI) as the driving force behind this transformation. Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, discusses these changes and their profound impact on society and the future of humanity.

Table of Contents
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AI will boost human social progress
How AI will change work and learning
Shared prosperity: Beyond today’s wealth
A leap of wisdom in human history: The era of superintelligence
The key to success lies in deep learning
How AI will impact future society
Ensuring the democratization of AI
Looking ahead: A bright future in the era of intelligence

Sam Altman states that human progress is not a new phenomenon, but it is currently accelerating. The achievements we can accomplish now far surpass what our ancestors could have imagined. This progress is not a result of genetic changes, but rather due to the continuous improvement of social infrastructure, enabling everyone to harness a greater collective intelligence than any individual could possess.

Our grandparents and earlier generations laid a solid foundation for human progress. Today, artificial intelligence is providing us with tools to solve complex problems, further driving progress, and building better social structures for future generations. Our children will be able to achieve accomplishments that we cannot even imagine.

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Sam Altman believes that this process will not happen overnight, but we will soon be able to collaborate with AI to accomplish tasks that were previously beyond our individual capabilities. Ultimately, each of us may have a dedicated AI team, a virtual set of experts that can collaborate across various fields to assist us in realizing almost any creative idea we can imagine. For the next generation, AI mentors can provide personalized instruction in any subject, language, or at the pace required by the learner.

Furthermore, fields such as healthcare and software development will undergo significant changes, making many dreams that currently seem unattainable a reality. The power of AI will not only enhance individual capabilities but also help us achieve broader shared prosperity.

Sam Altman suggests that this shared prosperity could surpass our present imaginations. In the future, everyone’s lives can be better than the current affluent class. While wealth itself does not guarantee happiness, it can significantly improve people’s quality of life on a global scale.

Sam Altman states that from a narrow perspective, the evolution of human history can be interpreted as the result of scientific discoveries and technological advancements. The accumulation of thousands of years has allowed us to extract chips from melted sand and use their astonishing precision and microscopic scale to build increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems.

This process may be one of the most influential phenomena in history. From the breakthrough in deep learning technology, we may enter the era of superintelligence in just a few thousand days, although it may take longer. However, I firmly believe that we will eventually arrive.

Sam Altman believes that the key to reaching the threshold of this leap of prosperity lies in “the success of deep learning.” More specifically, deep learning has become more powerful as it scales up, and we have invested more and more resources to drive this technology.

Humans have discovered an algorithm that can truly learn from any data distribution. With increasing computational power and data, this technology has helped us solve many challenging problems, and the potential for future technological advancements is awe-inspiring.

Sam Altman states that although there are still many details to be resolved, the core role of deep learning is undeniable. The expansion of AI will improve the quality of life globally and make personal assistant-type AIs a reality, assisting people in various tasks ranging from healthcare to scientific breakthroughs.

From the Stone Age to the Agricultural Age, and then the Industrial Age, we are now on the path to the “era of intelligence.” This path is paved by computing power, energy, and human will.

Sam Altman believes that in order to democratize AI technology, we need to reduce the cost of computation and ensure an adequate supply of energy and chips. If we do not actively build the infrastructure, AI may become a scarce resource, leading to resource competition or even wars, serving only the affluent class.

We must act with caution but also with determination. The arrival of the era of intelligence will bring great challenges, but its potential benefits are so immense that we have a responsibility to explore how to address future risks.

Sam Altman states, “I believe the future will be so bright that it cannot be fully described in words today. We will witness astonishing breakthroughs, such as solving climate change, establishing space colonies, and even making groundbreaking discoveries in physics. With infinite wisdom and abundant energy support, we can achieve almost anything.”

Like previous technological revolutions, AI will also bring negative impacts. We need to be proactive in maximizing the benefits of AI while minimizing its potential harms. For example, the labor market will undergo significant changes due to AI in the coming years, although most jobs may change slower than people imagine, I have no doubt that we will “have things to do.”

Humans have an innate desire to create and provide value to others, and AI will amplify our abilities in unprecedented ways. Society will enter a new era of expansion, and we can once again focus on the game of win-win.

Many of the jobs we do today may seem meaningless to people hundreds of years ago. However, no one would miss the past way of life. If we could travel a hundred years into the future, the prosperity at that time would also be unimaginable to us.

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Further reading
Central banks embrace AI, how does generative AI redefine the global economy?
BlackRock teams up with Microsoft and Nvidia, raising $30 billion for AI infrastructure.