OpenAI Says it Knows how to Build AGI and Sets Sights on Superintelligence

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has set the tone for the year ahead in AI with a bold declaration: OpenAI believes it knows how to build AGI (artificial general intelligence) and is now turning its sights towards superintelligence.

While there is no consensus as to what AGI is exactly, OpenAI defines AGI as "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans in most economically valuable work". Altman believes superintelligent tools could accelerate scientific discovery and innovation beyond current human capabilities, leading to increased abundance and prosperity.

We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” and materially change the output of companies. We continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great, broadly-distributed outcomes.
 
We are beginning to turn our aim beyond that, to superintelligence in the true sense of the word. We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future. With superintelligence, we can do anything else. Superintelligent tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own, and in turn massively increase abundance and prosperity.

To be clear, Altman's perspective isn't unique. At this point, multiple AI researchers from leading labs have now expressed similar sentiments about the timeline for AGI . In fact, last June, Ilya Sutskever (who played a key role in the failed attempt to oust Altman as CEO), departed OpenAI and founded what he described as the world's first "straight-shot superintelligence lab". In September, Sutskever secured $1 billion in funding at a $5 billion valuation.

Altman’s reflections come as OpenAI prepares to launch its latest reasoning model, o3, later this month. The company debuted o3 in December at the conclusion of its "12 Days of OpenAI" event with some impressive benchmarks.

OpenAI Unveils o3 Model Family: Advancing Reasoning, Coding, and Safety

The announcement marks a significant step forward in AI capabilities, particularly in technical reasoning and problem-solving domains.

MaginativeChris McKay

You can check out Altman's full post here.