Altman moves to quell rumors that OpenAI has achieved AGI
Wild rumors that OpenAI had already achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI) have made the company’s CEO Sam Altman go online and shut down the hype – for now.
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Wild rumors that OpenAI had already achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI) have made the company’s CEO Sam Altman go online and shut down the hype – for now.
“Twitter hype is out of control again,” Altman wrote in the post on X. “We are not gonna deploy AGI next month, nor have we built it.”
Still, the OpenAI CEO also said the company had some “cool stuff” coming up but warned fans to cut their expectations by “100x.” In other words, the reality falls far short of the hype surrounding a potential AGI release.
twitter hype is out of control again.
undefined Sam Altman (@sama) January 20, 2025
we are not gonna deploy AGI next month, nor have we built it.
we have some very cool stuff for you but pls chill and cut your expectations 100x!
AGI is a concept for a machine that can learn and understand any intellectual task a human can – essentially a type of AI that aims to mimic the human brain’s cognitive abilities.
Rumors that OpenAI had already reached the important milestone were fueled last week by a post published by a writer who goes by the name Gwern Branwen. He claimed that OpenAI was on the edge of a breakthrough with its new reasoning models because they could produce data needed to train more advanced models.
“If you’re wondering why OAers are suddenly weirdly, almost euphorically, optimistic on Twitter, watching the improvement from the original 4o model to o3 (and wherever it is now!) may be why. It’s like watching the AlphaGo Elo curves: it just keeps going up… and up… and up…” Branwen wrote in the post.
According to Altman, plenty is yet unsolved. However, he has also contributed to the hype extensively.
On his blog this month, Altman claimed that OpenAI already knows how to build AGI and that we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” as soon as this year. He also said that “superintelligence in a few thousand days” was possible.
“This sounds like science fiction right now, and somewhat crazy to even talk about it. That’s alright – we’ve been there before and we’re OK with being there again. We’re pretty confident that in the next few years, everyone will see what we see,” said Altman.
Trouble is looming ahead, though, at least according to a report by Business Insider. The report said that the rate of AI model improvement appears to be slowing down and that some companies face issues building new advanced models.
Specifically, OpenAI also heard last week that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found (PDF) the firm’s partnership with Microsoft troubling and potentially anti-competitive.
“The FTC’s report sheds light on how partnerships by big tech firms can create lock-in, deprive start-ups of key AI inputs, and reveal sensitive information that can undermine fair competition,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan, soon to be replaced by the new administration.