Today's AI Is a Genius and a Toddler at Once
He says researchers in 2019 would have predicted economic upheaval, and missed how well people and machines fit together.
Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy · Sam Altman on AGI, Compute, and Human AgencySam Altman, who leads the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, offered a time travel test. If researchers in 2019 had seen the latest AI models, he said, they would have called them AGI, short for artificial general intelligence, AI that can match people across most thinking tasks, and they would have said the economy would be completely upended.
That sudden, broad loss of human work has not happened. “Anytime you’re that wrong and that confident, which I think we were as a field, you have to update,” Altman said.
His update starts with a plain point: AI is uneven. He called it jagged, meaning it is superhuman genius in some ways and a dumb toddler in others.
He offered a second, separate takeaway. People's abilities, he said, have so far paired well with AI.
Altman also noted people seem to enjoy and trust working with other people. In his impression, most people still prefer interacting with a human, even though they can use AI for consulting or sales work. “I definitely would like much rather engage with a person than engage with an AI for almost everything,” Altman said, presenting it as his own impression.
He put that preference in broader terms. “Human values have value because they’re human,” he said. As the possibilities ahead grow enormous, he said, people remain “deeply hardwired to care about people,” and “we’re going to care about what people care about.”
Questions people ask
Why hasn't AI replaced more jobs so far?
Many jobs bundle many tasks, and AI is strong at some parts and weak at others. Employers also face legal, trust, and customer preference reasons to keep people in charge. As a result, AI has often changed parts of jobs rather than removing whole roles.
Where do customers still seem to prefer a person?
People often prefer humans for sales, support, and advice where empathy and accountability matter. Altman mentioned AI consultants, sales representatives, and engineers as roles where customers can already choose AI but often still pick a person.
What is artificial general intelligence?
It is a commonly used term for AI that can match humans across most mental work, not just one specialty. There is no agreed test for when it arrives, and experts use the term in different ways.