Sam Altman wants you to know that the sky isn’t falling. At least not as fast as some of his peers have been predicting.
During a virtual conference on May 26, the OpenAI CEO addressed what has become one of the most anxiety-inducing questions in modern economics: will AI destroy your job? His answer was notably more measured than the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric that has dominated the conversation for the past few years.
The 25% problem
To understand Altman’s positioning, you need to understand who he’s distancing himself from. Dario Amodei, CEO of rival AI company Anthropic, has floated a probability of 10-25% that AI could lead to what the industry calls “p(doom),” essentially the chance of a catastrophic, world-ending outcome. Amodei has also warned that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years.
Altman isn’t buying it, or at least he’s not selling it anymore.
