Cheaper, faster, better?
Tech billionaire announces artificial employees
January 9, 2025 – 4:52 p.mReading time: 2 min.
OpenAI boss Sam Altman claims that his company is close to developing human-like AI. Experts see this critically.
Sam Altman announced in a blog post that his company is capable of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI). The CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI expects that the first AI agents will be working in companies as early as 2025 and will “significantly change” their performance.
In his blog post entitled “Reflections” published on January 6th, Altman looks back on the development of OpenAI and looks ahead to the future. AGI refers to AI systems that can outperform humans in most economically relevant activities – according to experts, they are developing exponentially.
We know how to build AGI.
Sam Altman
AI agents should be able to independently understand complex goals and make decisions. They can carry out multi-step thought processes and require minimal human intervention. Nvidia boss Jensen Huang also sees AI agents as an important trend. At a balance sheet conference in November, he described their introduction into companies as “the latest craze”.
However, Altman’s announcement also met with criticism. Gary Marcus, professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University, doubts the statements of the OpenAI boss. In a series of posts, he pointed out that current language models still fail at basic tasks such as mathematics and logical thinking.
AI expert Fabian Westerheide, one of the best-known minds in the German tech and AI scene, also warns in an interview with t-online against too much euphoria: “AGI has been viewed as the holy grail of AI for decades. But with every leap into the “AI’s capabilities are simply using new superlatives, while the reality is more sober: the machines have simply become bigger, more expensive and faster – it’s not magic, it’s technology.”
Westerheide emphasizes that the discussion about AGI does not change the exponential growth and the associated challenges. At the same time, the term is also a marketing tool, because every company wants to be the first to claim AGI for themselves.
The development of AGI has special significance for technology companies: it could replace many human workers with software, thereby reducing labor costs while increasing productivity. Altman himself sees this possible development and advocates a universal basic income as a possible solution.
According to Altman, OpenAI is striving to go beyond AGI. The company wants to develop “superintelligence in the truest sense of the word.” This could significantly accelerate scientific discoveries and innovations. Dario Amodei, head of the AI company Anthropic, assumes that human-level AI could be available as early as 2026.
Almost two years ago, OpenAI marked a turning point in AI development with the introduction of ChatGPT. The chatbot triggered a veritable AI boom and is now used by more than 300 million people per week.