Uncapped #13 | Sam Altman from OpenAI

0:00So far, we've got a consumer business, a B2B business. There's this whole Joni Ives thing, which I'm sure you, you know, we can't really talk about Johnny. Johnny, oh, we got to start it. I got to start it. I can't do that. So, leave that in. Please. No, no, no, we're going to have. All right. Today I'm here with Sam. Sam, before we start, do you have anything you need to say? You're my literal podcast bro. No. Wow. This is great. How did you become to this? It's so sad. Can you start a company? Then you start being a VC and now I'm here. Are you disappointed? I went the other way. What do you mean?

0:31Well, I was like a VC. Then I did a podcast. No, you were. Yeah. It's been good for you. It's great. I'm really proud of you. Okay. So, but I think this is great for you. Thank you. Okay. I think you're an incredible podcast. So very nice sweater too. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, I want to start by talking about the stuff. What are you going to say? I'll say it later. When we're done recording. I wanted to start by talking about the future of AI. And I want to talk about the medium term, because the short term is not as interesting to me. The long term who knows. But like five, 10 years out is what I'm most interested in talking about.

1:00And I kind of want to try to pull out from you your best guess of a bunch of specific things. One of the places I wanted to start was in software, it seems like the most effective use cases so far, which I'm curious if you agree with, but seem to be coding and then. Chat and code. Yeah, chat and code. I'm curious what's next. Like on the next sort of what's the next set of things right after that that will come. Well, I think there will be incredible like other products like there will be a crazy new social experiences. There will be like Google Docs style. AI workflows that are just way more productive.

1:36You'll start to see like they'll have these like virtual employees. But the thing that I think will be the most impactful on that five to 10 year timeframe is, I will actually discover new science. And this is a crazy claim to make, but I think it is true. And if it is correct, then. Over time, I think that will dwarf everything else. Why do you think it will discover new science? Well, I think we've cracked. Reasoning in the models we've had a long way to go. I think we know what to do. And you know, O3 is already like pretty smart. You hear people say like, wow, this is like a good PhD. What does it mean to crack reasoning?

2:09The models can now do the kind of reasoning in a particular domain. You'd expect a PhD in that field to be able to do it. Some sense we're like, oh, okay, the a eyes are like. A top competitive programmer in the world now. Or a eyes can get like a top score on the world's hardest math competitions. Or a eyes can like, you know, do problems that I'd expect an extra PhD on my PhD in my field to do. And we're like, not that impressed is crazy. But it is sort of a crazy thing. Yeah. You know, this reasoning ability of the models over the last year. Are you surprised? Yes. Yeah. You thought that it was just going to be like the next token.

2:41I thought it was going to take a little bit longer to get where we are now. The last year of progress has been faster than that. Did the way reasoning happen, happened the way you thought it would happen? Like often has happened in a history of open AI. Sometime pretty often. The dumbest first approach turns out to work. So I don't think I should be surprised by that anymore. And yet it's like a little surprising time. So reasoning will lead to science going faster or just new stuff for both. Both. I mean, you already hear scientists who say they're faster with AI. Like we don't have AI, maybe I'll honestly doing science.

3:12But if a human scientist is three times as productive using O3, that's still a pretty big deal. And then as that keeps going in the AI, I can like autonomously do some science. Figure out novel physics. Is it all that happening as a co -pilot right now? Yeah. There's definitely not like you definitely can't go say like, hey, chat you be to figure out. New physics and expect that to work. So I do I think it is currently co -pilot like, but I've heard like anecdotal reports from biologists where it's like, wow, it really did figure out 90. I had to develop it a little bit more, but it made like a fundamental leap.

3:45Will it be easier to get AI to build you a whole business like build you a whole e -commerce business or like do like a hard piece of science or medium. I wonder about this. If you could like build AI a hundred billion dollar particle accelerator. Yeah. And say you make the decisions. You look at the data, you tell us like, you know, what experiments to run and we'll go like, find the stuff and do it. So you spend a hundred billion dollars doing that. Or you spend a hundred billion dollars like building it infrastructure to like connect into the economy. Which of those will it have an easier time doing something remarkable with.

4:24Yeah. And I think the physics is a cleaner problem. You know, I think if you could get like new high energy physics data and then AI the ability to like run experiments, I think that's like a cleaner problem. I've heard people say that they expect the first area of science. I think this is like, I don't know if this is accurate. I've heard people say that they expect the first area of science where AI makes autonomous new discoveries to be astrophysics. Because there's just mountains of data. We don't have a PhDs to look at it. And maybe it's not that hard to figure out new stuff. But I don't really know.

4:53Okay. So science gets better. The coding and chat will just keep getting better. Does that lead on the business side? Do you also then have the ability to just can you prompt a whole business? Like could you just say build me this type of business that looks like this? That will happen. Well, they're not people doing that for like small stuff. You know, you hear these stories of people who like use AI to do market research and like figure out new products and then like email some manufacturer and get some dumb thing made and sell it on Amazon and run ads. Like there are people that have actually figured out a small scale and most boring ways possible.

5:29How to like put a dollar into AI and get the AI to like run a toy business. But it's actually working. Yeah. So that'll climb the gradient. Yeah. What about in the world of like physical stuff? Because like I get that I mean it seems to me. You know, very clear that like software is just going this direction. Science I know less take your word on it. What about like moving physical things around? Kind, but I think we'll get there. For example, I think we have some new technology that could just do self driving for standard cars way better than any current approaches worked. And that might not be quite what you meant by like no it is humanoid robots.

6:08Yeah. But if our AI techniques can like really go drive a car. That's still pretty cool. Yeah. Humanoid robots are the dream. Obviously I really care about that. I think we will get there eventually. It's been like a hard mechanical engineering challenge. That's more the issue. No, both things are hard. But like even if we had the perfect brain right now, I don't think we have the body yet. We actually very early on up now we used to work on this robotic hand. And it was hard for all the wrong reasons. Like the thing just broke all the time. The simulator was like a little bit off. Wow. But you know we'll get there.

6:41Yeah. I mean, five to ten years we'll have great humanoid robots. Yeah. Like amazing. And they'll just like walk down the street, be doing stuff. Yeah. I mean, you'd think that's where a huge amount of step change unlocks, right? I think that will be one of the moments that not only is unlocks a bunch of stuff in the world. I think that will feel the strangest. Yeah. You get used to a lot of things. We get used to like chat GBT doing these things that would have sounded like a miracle five years ago. But if you walk down the street and it's like half robots, are you going to use that one right away?

7:11I don't know. Probably you do, but it feels like a big difference. That's the one that'll feel like there's like a new species taking over us. Yeah. I think that'll feel, I don't even feel like a new species or that it's taking over, but I think it will feel like the future in a way that chat GBT still does not. I think also if we can figure out great new computing devices to make, that will feel maybe like the future. But as amazing as chat GBT is, or these new coding agents, and they are amazing. It's like still stuck in the form director of the past. Yeah. It's also stuck in it's stuck in the computer.

7:46Yeah. There's definitely something about that it only can do stuff out of the computer, but I don't know like how much of the economic value in all of the world that you think is like cognitive labor that can be done behind the computer like half. I was going to say a quarter, but maybe I don't know, but some big number. Yeah. The stuff get much riskier once we have like super embodied intelligence, because those things are going to be way stronger than us too. I don't know about way riskier. I think like the ability to make a bio weapon or like take down a country's whole grid. You can do quite damaging things without physical stuff.

8:19It gets riskier in like sillier ways like I would be afraid to have a human I robot walking around my house that might fall on my baby LSI like really, really trusted it. Yeah. What what like if you're thinking about, you know, we're back here in 10 years having another conversation and we're like, did I do what we thought it would do? What metrics are you expecting? Like is it that like the GDP growth curve has a kink in it? Is it that like life expectancy is up? Is it like there's less poverty? Is it something completely different? So every year before the last like maybe up until last year, I would have said like, hey, I think this is going to go really far, but it still seems like there's a lot that we've got to figure out.

9:01I feel very confident at this point, most confident I've ever felt that we kind of like know what to do to get to incredible AI systems that are just super, super capable. If something was wrong, I would say like somehow it's that we build the legitimate super intelligence and it doesn't make the world much better doesn't change things as much as it sounds like it should. Which seems like a crazy thing to say. Yeah, but like I don't know if I told you in 2020, maybe I did tell you like we're going to make something like chat GPT. And it's going to be as smart as a PhD student in most areas and we're going to deploy it and you know, a significant fraction of the world is going to use it and kind of use it a lot.

9:42Maybe you would have believed that maybe you wouldn't have, but conditioned on that. I bet you would say, okay, if that happens, the world looks more way more different than it does right now. Yeah, so it's like we have this crazy thing. Yeah, I mean, there's this thing where it's like the touring tests, you know, everybody's just went by. Yeah, nobody really cared. And yeah, I don't know what explains that. Or the fact that you can like have this thing do these amazing, amazing stuff for you and you kind of live your life the same way you did two years ago. Yeah, kind of work the same way you did two years ago.

10:09Do you think that's possible that we have like crazy super intelligence that's like 400 IQ and we're still that's still the case? I totally think that's possible. Wow. If it's off discovering new science for us, eventually society will figure out how to deal with that, but it may be very slow. Well, what's funny is if it looked like a co -pilot, you kind of still credit the PI at the lab who was using this, you know, 400 IQ agent behind it. So I think you kind of will no matter what humans are so wired to care about other humans, we need people in the story. You know, we need to talk about like that guy did that thing.

10:44Yeah, or like made this decision or made this mistake or had, you know, just whatever. That's why I was surprised that you don't think if we had like a super accurately embodied robot that we wouldn't start to imprint some of that on that robot. I think we will find out I may be wrong. I think we will have more of a relationship than we do now as the thing is more embodied. But I think we are so deeply hardwired to care about other people and that is going to turn out to be pretty deep in biology. And if you know it's a robot, no matter how human like it seems in other ways, you're not going to care that much.

11:19That's that's speculation. So reasoning was like one of the components of intelligence that like sort of got figured out. Is there like another thread going around like a topic of like agency or like some concept of like self directedness, like is that a thing? The ability to work on a goal over a very long time with a lot of complicated steps along the way. I think it's maybe what you're going for. Yes, same thing. And that is definitely something we're working on. Yeah. What about the future sort of technical path? Would you say is now inevitable? And what parts would you say you're still not sure which way it'll break?

11:56I think we will get to extremely smart and capable models. A capable of discovering important new ideas capable of automating huge amounts of work. But then I feel totally confused about what society looks like if that happens. So I'm like most interested in the capabilities questions. But I feel like maybe at this point more people should be talking about like how do we make sure society gets the value out of this? I think those questions have somehow become harder and less clear. This is a crazy statement. We're going to solve the super intelligence, but maybe society still sucks. Yeah. I can't tell the feel right to me, but I can't tell sometimes with some of these statements that people don't react because they only kind of believe it.

12:39And maybe that's part of why. But I agree. I mean, that's what the history of a lot of this stuff has been. Like get said, people don't quite believe it. And then it happens. And then people just kind of adjust. So I don't know what to make all that either. I feel like we've been very right on the technical predictions. And then I somehow thought society would feel more different if we actually delivered on them and it does so far. But I don't even it's not obvious that that's a bad thing. Well, one of the more obvious short -term impacts will be potentially, or you think, would be like employment.

13:11That seems like something that like we don't need like, you know, we don't need to believe crazy leap to see that there ought to be some impact. Like this is going to happen in customer support very obviously right now, for example. Yeah, I mean, my take on this is a lot of jobs will go away. A lot of jobs will just change dramatically. But we have always been really good at figuring out new things to do and ways to occupy ourselves and status games or ways to be useful to each other. And I'm like not a believer that that ever runs out. Yeah. I think now I do think it gets maybe sillier and sillier looking from our current perspective.

13:44Yeah, like podcasts, bro, was not a real job not that long ago. And you figured out how to monetize it and you're doing great. I'm all happy for you. So happy. But would like the subsistence farmer look at this and say this was a job or this is you like playing a game to entertain yourself? I think they would subscribe to this podcast. I bet they would. They would like it. But I do think that there is like a big issue here in the short term. I think long term who knows. I mean, one of the things I'm curious about is in general. So like going from a time when like everybody was a farmer and like nothing that we're currently doing makes any sense to like now you have all this stuff.

14:15Is it different this time if there's enough resources to go around like at some point. Are there enough resources to go around and like that's what creates the difference where now people just like don't make new jobs and this so Vinod was on the podcast last week. We're going to release this one first. So this won't be out by the time that this is said. But his point was that people will just consume a lot more leisure. So he kind of took the view of like I think this time like there's just going to be an abundance of resources. Everybody's going to have the stuff that they need. We're going to be able to build you know buildings and people can now just like enjoy their lives.

14:49Again, I think like the relativistic framing matters here to us. I bet it will look like those people are just consuming crazy amounts of leisure. I guess this looks like a lot of leisure. But look at you in that beautiful $2 ,000 lower piano sweater and doing like hosting this. This is a regular. So yeah, I think the relativistic point is really important. But like you know to us our jobs feel incredibly important and stressful and satisfying. And if we're all just making better entertainment for each other in the future, maybe that's kind of what at least one of us is doing right now. That's right.

15:24It's exactly. All right. Well, it's change gears. I don't like what this is going. Let's talk about open. It's a good thing about our brothers. They can really call you out on your bullshit. It's really helpful. I appreciate it. Let's go to can we talk about open ads? Yes. Thank you. So with open ads so far we have like a consumer business. There's obviously a B2B business. There's something in hardware with Johnny I've there's a bunch of other potential stuff that looks like it's kind of hanging around. Can you talk about like what's the potential complete apparatus or what's the apparatus at least in some period of time?

15:54Yeah, I think what what consumers want from us eventually is an AI companion for lack of a better word that lives in the ether and that is helping them in all these ways through all these surfaces and all these products. And that gets to know you and your goals and what you want to accomplish and your information. And sometimes you'll like type in it with inside of chat GPT. Sometimes you'll be using a more like entertainment focused version. Sometimes you'll be using other services that will have like integrated with our platform. Sometimes you'll be using our new device. And but what you will have is this thing that will just be helping you get done whatever you want to get done.

16:37Like sometimes it's pushing stuff to you. Sometimes you're like asking questions. Sometimes it's just there like observing and getting better for the future. But that is eventually what I think it'll feel like is this is my. We don't quite have the right word for it. My AI companion is the best I can do right now. Do you think we have like the wrong form factor with all of our stuff right now? Like computing? Yes. I wrong is too strong of a word. I don't think we have like the optimal thing. We there are basically been two. Revolutions in computer form factors interfaces. Whatever you want to call it that I think it really mattered.

17:13I mean, there was like stuff a long time ago, but either you know I or paying attention. But in our lifetime, there's been like this kind of a computer like a keyboard and mouse and a monitor, which is pretty awesome and pretty general purpose. And then there's been like touch devices that you carry around. And honestly, those are the big ones. Both of those had the constraints of not having AI. And so there's like things that you had to build or that you could run or not. If you have this incredible new technology, you can maybe get much closer to the kind of computer that exists in sci -fi. That'll be the same intelligence just in a new form factor, which lets you use it differently.

17:55Yeah, but the form factor really matters because it's with you all the time. That could be one reason it really matters. If it's like with you all the time and full of sensors and kind of just understands what's happening and you know, keep track, keep track of a lot of stuff. And also if you trust that we're like, well, they're very small command, you can get something complex to happen and happen correctly. Like you can just imagine very different kinds of devices. What are the other components that you're thinking about right now? Like so there's like, you know, there's obviously the way that like chat is getting used by consumers.

18:22There's the API that you know startups are using all over the place. There's this like device thing. Like what are the other like big legs of the stool? I think the most important one that the world hasn't really thought about yet is what it means for this to be a platform that everything integrates into and that integrates everywhere. So then when you're using other, when you're in your car or when you're using some other website or whatever, it's just perfect continuity. I think that will matter a lot. But there are new kinds of things to build like there are totally new kinds of ways to think about productivity, new kinds of ways to think about social entertainment.

18:56But I think the ubiquity will be one of the defining pieces. Given that the intelligence has such strong implications through all of this, there's all these sub components to intelligence and like layers above the stack. You know, like you've even talked about like energy, you're obviously super involved in energy. There's like a bunch of things even between there and there's hardware and all that stuff. Do you feel like it's like important either for like just open AI for the country? Like how important is this whole stack given all these implications? Critical. I mean, I think the country needs to be thinking of or like the world, the country would ever say needs to be thinking about it from like the electron to the chat to be T query.

19:36Yeah. And there's a lot of stuff in between. Yeah. And I've started calling that the like AI factory. I think we should call it the meta factory because theoretically this is a factory that can make more copies of itself, but whatever we got to do that whole supply chain. We the world have got to do that whole supply chain. Is it important for open AI to do a lot of it? I mean, I think vertical integration can be good in some ways, but no, it is not important for us to do a lot of it if we could be certain that the whole thing would happen at enough scale. And so there's a lot of places where with partnerships we can drive like huge.

20:05And then it was like no risk that we lost part of it. Yeah. Yeah. On the energy side, are we going to just consume humongous amounts of energy? Is that going to be basically the only end state here? I mean, I sure hope so. Like, I think that the thing that has most correlated with improvements in quality of life over history is increasing abundance of energy. I have no reason to believe that's going to stop. Is there any like climate concern with that or are you just like that's all going to get figured out? Well, I think fusion will happen and fish and new kinds of fish and will happen and how comfortable on fusion?

20:41Are you totally confident on it? I never say totally, but pretty confident, like quite confident. And that becomes like a huge percentage of I think so energy. But like next gen fishing stuff is awesome too. Yeah. Like I know most of this company called Oaklow, but there's other companies I think doing great work and like that's a huge win. Yeah. Solar and storage seems pretty good, but but I hope that eventually humanity is consuming way more energy than we could ever be generating on earth. Yeah. Even if we switch entirely to fusion, like at some point, if you scaled up Earth's current energy used by a factor of 10 or you know 100 or whatever, and just like you know the earth too much from the waste heat.

21:20But we got a big solar system out there. Doesn't all this stuff that we're talking about mean that like space is both like really important and becomes more likely in general. Yes. Like we're going to space. I hope so. Yeah. Kind of sad if we don't. Yeah. It seems like that it's funny. Should I make a rocket company? I told you that I hope you should make a rocket company. That's why I think I think you should. I don't know why not. What does it on the list? I have a whole lot of things on the list for you. I would do rocket. I would do social. I would do as many as you could. I could be on cloud, Plus, and I would be happy to answer that.

21:46Basically, we're not. Uh, kind of like the one thing I like my family. Pretty busy already. Yeah. I'm speaking of social, actually. Can we can we ask you about the whole meta scale? Of course. So, uh, what's the what's the situation there? Look, I've heard that. Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor. And you know, I think it is rational for them to keep trying their current eye efforts. Have not worked as well as they've hoped. And I respect like being aggressive and continues to try new things. and I, and again, given that I think this is like rational, I expect that if this one doesn't work out, they'll keep trying new ones after that.

22:22I remember once hearing Zach talk about how, you know, Google in the early days of Facebook, it was rational for them to try social, even that was like clear to people at Facebook that that was not going to work. And I feel a little bit similar here, but they started making these like giant offers to, you know, a lot of people on our team, you know, like $199 signing bonuses more than that comp per year. It's crazy. And I'm actually, it is crazy. I'm really happy that at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that. I think that people sort of look at the two paths and say, all right, OpenAIDS got a really good shot, a much better shot.