OpenAI CEO Shares Thoughts on Potential IPO
During a conference in Abu Dhabi, Chief Executive Sam Altman stated that OpenAI, which is supported by Microsoft and responsible for ChatGPT, has no immediate intentions of becoming a publicly traded company.
“As we develop superintelligence, we’re likely to make decisions that most investors find very strange,” Altman said.
“I don’t want to challenge the public markets, Wall Street, etc., so no, I’m not interested,” he said when asked if he would take OpenAI public.
OpenAI has so far raised $10 billion from Microsoft at a valuation of nearly $30 billion as it invests more in building computing capabilities.
“We have a very strange structure. We have this profit cap,” he said.
OpenAI began as a non-profit organization, but later created a “profit cap” hybrid company that allowed it to raise outside funds with the promise that the original non-profit would continue to benefit.
Altman and several well-known researchers involved in the creation and commercialization of the technology have warned of the threat it poses as they build their AI capabilities, particularly creating content for AI such as ChatGPT, which some equate with the risks of extinction. They demand organization.
Altman is on a whirlwind tour around the world meeting with the heads of state of several countries and was in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday. He plans to travel alongside Qatar, India and South Korea.
A European controversy
While in Europe, he ran into controversy when he said OpenAI could leave the region if planned AI laws were too difficult to enforce. This drew criticism from several lawmakers, including EU industry chief Thierry Breton. OpenAI later reversed the situation.
“We have not threatened to leave the EU. We expect to be able to comply,” Altmann said on Tuesday. “There is still more clarity in the EU legislation on artificial intelligence, but we are very excited to work in Europe.”
The European Union is preparing laws to regulate artificial intelligence, including proposals that would force any company to use tools like ChatGPT to detect copyrighted material used to train its systems.
OpenAI does not disclose this information about its latest AI model, GPT 4.
However, Altmann received support from EU technology chief Margrethe Vestager, who said she did not see Altmann’s comments as a threat, but rather a promise to do her best.
“One thing about this technology that people don’t realize is that in a few years, GPT 4 is going to look like a small game that wasn’t very impressive,” Altman said, referring to the rise of artificial intelligence.
“There are pictures, sound, video, text, computer programming, all in one.”
Many experts have mentioned the potential threat to the replacement of jobs by artificial intelligence in fields such as transportation, logistics, office support, administration, manufacturing, services and retail.
The jobs of the future will look “very different than a lot of jobs today,” Altman said, adding that there will also be opportunities.
