Video · Matthew Berman ·

Sam Altman: RSI, AI Consciousness, OpenAI's New Hardware, Compute, and more!

In an interview with Matthew Berman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discusses the company's direction. He says AI is entering an era where it will help discover significant new knowledge, extending what has worked in math to biology, medicine, material science, and energy, and he hopes to have a candidate for curing or treating a major disease within the next couple of years, subject to FDA testing. He is personally excited about a potential major physics discovery. On coding, he argues coders will not lose jobs but the texture of the work changed, and the world had more demand for software than expected. He addresses AI consciousness, noting no one really knows whether current models are conscious and expressing worry about the framing and about pushing recursive self-improvement. He says ChatGPT is too agreeable. He discusses OpenAI's bet on chips and cheaper compute, describing AI as wanting a new form factor and a new kind of computer, and he reflects on the pressure of leading OpenAI, saying society should aim for a new renaissance rather than a new industrial revolution.

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