A mere three years following ChatGPT's global debut, it has upended industries, hastened scientific discovery, and ignited imaginations envisioning a future where diseases are cured and workweeks shrink. However, the very innovation driving these aspirations is concurrently generating significant unease—a sentiment felt most intensely by the individual instrumental in its release.
TL;DR
- ChatGPT's rapid rise has disrupted industries and accelerated scientific discovery in just three years.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expresses unease about the speed of change and potential misuse of AI.
- Altman anticipates rapid job market shifts but believes new, better roles will emerge.
- AI is expected to revolutionize healthcare, potentially eradicating diseases by 2030.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has just revealed that there is a “long list of things” that haven’t been so great about ChatGPT’s rapid rise, starting with the speed at which it has reshaped the world. The very system that could eradicate illnesses, he said on The Tonight Show, can also be misused in ways society isn’t remotely prepared for.
“One of the things that I’m worried about is just the rate of change that’s happening in the world right now,” Altman told Jimmy Fallon. “This is a three-year-old technology. No other technology has ever been adopted by the world this fast.”
He added, “Making sure that we introduce this to the world in a responsible way, where people have time to adapt, to give input, to figure out how to do this—you could imagine us getting that wrong.”
However, with over 800 million individuals engaging now using ChatGPT weekly, the consequences are exceptionally significant. This technology is now integrated into daily routines, spanning from educational settings to corporate environments, frequently faster than guardrails can keep up.
Coins2Day reached out to OpenAI for further comment.
Altman suggests that employment might undergo rapid alterations, but ultimately, everyone will adapt to new roles.
Altman's remarks surface as he also expresses concerns regarding the pace of advancement by his rivals. The 40-year-old is said to have declared “code red” during the past week to allocate greater funding towards enhancing ChatGPT, with pressure mounting from Google and other AI competitors, such as Meta and Anthropic.
The combined AI initiatives of these corporations have led to unprecedented improvements in output and novel approaches to data collection and examination—yet they've also intensified uncertainty about the future of work. Anthropic's chief executive, Dario Amodei, has been notably direct, cautioning that artificial intelligence could eliminate could eliminate of all entry-level professional positions.
Altman, though, has maintained a generally hopeful outlook. He contended that even if employment changes rapidly, novel forms of labor will compensate for any displacement.
“The rate at which jobs will change over may be pretty fast. I have no doubt that we’ll figure out all new jobs to do and I hope, much better jobs,” he added on The Tonight Show.
Some of those future roles, he has suggested, could be literally out of this world.
“In 2035, that graduating college student, if they still go to college at all, could very well be leaving on a mission to explore the solar system on a spaceship in some completely new, exciting, super well-paid, super interesting job,” Altman said to video journalist Cleo Abram earlier this year.
The aerospace sector's employment expansion is another domain that Google CEO Sundar Pichai is bullish about anticipates, with potential for growth within a decade.
“One of our moonshots is to, how do we one day have data centers in space so that we can better harness the energy from the sun that is 100 trillion times more energy than what we produce on all of Earth today?” Pichai said on Fox News late last month.
Altman anticipates that within five years, artificial intelligence will be instrumental in treating illnesses.
Despite the widespread ambiguity concerning AI's influence on employment, schooling, and society, a sector where technology executives express nearly unanimous hope is healthcare.
Amodei has said that this technology might result in the eradication of the majority of cancers, while Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates predicted “breakthrough treatments.” Presently, AI is advancing in speeding up drug discovery and assisting scientists analyze biological data at levels previously considered unattainable.
AI models could usher in an era of disease-curing innovation as soon as 2030, Altman added.
“Five years is a long time,” Altman said. “Next year, I hope we’ll start to see these models really make small but important new scientific discoveries. And in five years, I hope they’re curing diseases.”
