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Sam Altman is the head of the company behind the artificial intelligence that has been stirring up the tech world in recent weeks. Portrait of the boss of OpenAI, the company that develops ChatGPT and Dall-e tools in particular. A businessman who dreams of reinventing the world thanks to the generalization of artificial intelligence (AI).
Sam Altman is one of those who think that the development of technologies and artificial intelligence will solve all of humanity’s problems. With ChatGPT, its conversational robot, with Dall-e, his image generator, and Vall-e his voice synthesizer, the 37-year-old American investor intends to be the engine of this technological and social revolution. An unprecedented revolution, according to him. This is what he said three years ago during an exchange with investor Vinod Khosla: “ We try to build an intelligence more powerful than that of man. We seek to use it to solve the problems facing the world. If we are successful in this quest, I believe it will be the most significant technological transformation in human history. I think it will eclipse the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, and the Internet revolution, all put together. »
Sam Altman has just laid the first stones of this quest with the recent implementation of ChatGPT. A service that is not revolutionary, but innovative in its approach, according to Stéphane Nachez, director of publication you magazine Actu IA : « Sam Altman’s big move was to offer a combination of existing technologies in the form of a turnkey product, usable by the general public, where finally the general public sees the interest of AI and which will allow to grow very rapidly in the years to come. »
ChatGPT launched on wednesday. today it crossed 1 million users!
— Sam Altman (@sama) December 5, 2022
Figure from Silicon Valley
This success of ChatGPT, pushed the Chicago native to the forefront of the international scene. Even if Altman has already been playing in the big leagues for several years. The young businessman is a pure product of Silicon Valley. His career began on the benches of the prestigious Stanford University, the cradle of tech elites, where he learned computer science. But at 19 – it was then in 2005 – he stopped his studies to co-found Loopt. A mobile application that allows its users to share their location live.
Loopt very quickly becomes a success and has several million users. But Sam Altman dreams even bigger. In 2011, he sold his first project at a high price and joined Y Combinator, a highly rated start-up incubator in Silicon Valley.
Brilliant investor
Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe or even Pinterest… Sam Altman sniffs out juicy investments and is rapidly gaining notoriety. Alongside his position as a start-up scout, he decided in 2015 to embark on artificial intelligence. It was there that he co-founded OpenAI, with several partners, including a certain Elon Musk. If the two friends share the same vision of tech, politically, they are not on the same line.
Unlike the boss of Twitter, Sam Altman has always said he is close to the Democratic Party. He campaigns in particular for a universal income financed by the profits generated by artificial intelligence. And even on their personality, it is important to distinguish them, assures Stéphane Nachez: “ He is less whimsical and less controversial than Elon Musk. This allows for the moment to preserve it from blows of brilliance and bad buzz. »
However, this does not prevent his company from being at the heart of criticism. A recent magazine survey Time revealed that OpenAI used Kenyan workers, paid less than two dollars an hour. Enough to tarnish the image of the one who presents himself as the white knight, of an ethical and responsible artificial intelligence.
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