Latest news with #Altman
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Calls DeepSeek's Bluff: ‘I Don't Think They Figured Out Something Way More Efficient'
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is widely recognized as one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence (AI). His recent comments on DeepSeek, a rising AI competitor, offer insight into both his leadership style and his perspective on innovation within the field. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Altman remarked, 'The DeepSeek team is very talented and did a lot of good things. I don't think they figured out something way more efficient than we figured out.' This assessment highlights his respect for competing teams while underscoring his confidence in OpenAI's own technological progress. More News from Barchart Is Palantir Stock a Buy Above $150? Coinbase Stock Just Hit a New 52-Week High. How Much Higher Can Crypto Week Take COIN? This Bullish Catalyst for Nvidia Stock Is Coming in September Get exclusive insights with the FREE Barchart Brief newsletter. Subscribe now for quick, incisive midday market analysis you won't find anywhere else. DeepSeek caused a near-'flash crash' among stocks involved in the AI ecosystem at the beginning of 2025 after they released an AI model to rival U.S. models at a fraction of the cost. However, the DeepSeek team largely used the OpenAI API to train their model, and, ultimately didn't create anything novel, according to Altman. Altman's authority on the subject is well established. After dropping out of Stanford University to pursue entrepreneurial ventures, he co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking startup that sold for $43.4 million. He then served as president of Y Combinator, where he played a pivotal role in launching and scaling numerous successful startups, cementing his reputation as a force in Silicon Valley. In 2015, Altman co-founded OpenAI, leading the organization through the development of groundbreaking technologies such as GPT-3, DALL-E, and ChatGPT. Under his guidance, OpenAI has secured major investments, including a multi-year $10 billion partnership with Microsoft (MSFT), and has become a central player in the global AI landscape. Altman's comment on DeepSeek is consistent with his broader approach to competition. While he acknowledges the achievements of other teams, he remains focused on the rigorous, incremental progress that has defined OpenAI's trajectory. His statement that DeepSeek has not discovered 'something way more efficient' than OpenAI's own methods suggests a belief in the robustness and scalability of his own company's research and infrastructure. This pragmatic outlook is characteristic of Altman, who has often emphasized the importance of responsible innovation and continuous improvement over comparing oneself to their competitors. The context of Altman's remarks is particularly relevant as the AI industry becomes increasingly crowded with well-funded entrants and rapid technical advances. His perspective that efficiency breakthroughs are rare, even among talented teams, reflects both the complexity of the field and the high bar set by leading organizations. Altman's leadership has positioned OpenAI at the forefront of this competition, with products like ChatGPT achieving historic adoption rates and shaping public discourse on AI's potential and risks. Altman's frank response also aligns with his reputation for transparency and realism. He has consistently advocated for open discussion about AI's capabilities and limitations, both within the industry and in broader society. As the market for advanced AI models continues to evolve, Altman's perspective serves as a reminder that progress is often incremental and that leadership in this space requires both innovation and humility. His experience navigating the challenges of rapid technological change lends weight to his assessments, reinforcing his status as a trusted voice in the ongoing evolution of artificial intelligence. On the date of publication, Caleb Naysmith did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Sign in to access your portfolio


Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
ChatGPT's new ‘agent' tool can be tricked by bad actors: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman cautions: ‘Cutting-edge' but 'experimental'
In the fast-unfolding world of artificial intelligence, OpenAI's latest innovation, the ChatGPT Agent , promises to redefine how humans collaborate with machines. But as CEO Sam Altman put it in his candid new post on X (formerly Twitter), this powerful assistant is as much a peek into the future as it is a reminder to tread carefully. Described as a leap forward in AI utility, the ChatGPT Agent is more than your average chatbot. It can manage complex, multi-step tasks using its own virtual computer, functioning almost like a digital executive assistant. Want to book travel, buy a wedding outfit, and select a gift for a friend—all without switching tabs? Agent can handle that. Want a report prepared based on your data and transformed into a presentation? It can do that too. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Select a Course Category Design Thinking Others Public Policy Cybersecurity Degree Artificial Intelligence Digital Marketing Data Analytics CXO Technology Product Management PGDM Data Science Data Science MCA healthcare Project Management others Management MBA Finance Leadership Healthcare Skills you'll gain: Duration: 22 Weeks IIM Indore CERT-IIMI DTAI Async India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 25 Weeks IIM Kozhikode CERT-IIMK PCP DTIM Async India Starts on undefined Get Details 'It can think for a long time, use some tools, think some more, take some actions, think some more,' Altman explained, emphasizing the tool's advanced reasoning abilities and continuous decision-making. It's a blend of Deep Research and OpenAI's Operator models, but dialed up to full strength. — sama (@sama) Altman's Clear Warning: "Treat It as Experimental" But despite the allure, Altman is openly cautious about how users should approach the Agent. In his words: 'I would explain this to my own family as cutting edge and experimental… not something I'd yet use for high-stakes uses or with a lot of personal information.' You Might Also Like: OpenAI's Sam Altman reveals vision for AI's future: Could ChatGPT-5 become an all-powerful AGI 'smarter than us'? His tone is both enthusiastic and sober—encouraging users to try the tool, but with heavy warnings. Altman's honesty isn't new. He's previously called out ChatGPT's own shortcomings, from hallucinations to sycophantic responses. With Agent, he takes that transparency a step further. While OpenAI has built more robust safeguards than ever—ranging from enhanced training to user-level controls—he admits that they 'can't anticipate everything.' What Could Go Wrong? Agent's ability to carry out tasks autonomously means it can also make decisions that come with real-world consequences—especially if given too much access. For instance, Altman suggests that giving Agent access to your email and instructing it to 'take care of things' without follow-up questions could end poorly. It might click on phishing links or fall for scams a human would recognize instantly. He recommends granting Agent only the minimum access needed. Want it to book a group dinner? Give it access to your calendar. Want it to order clothes? No access is needed. The key is intentional use. You Might Also Like: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's 'peak life experience' will melt your heart. It has nothing to do with AI The risk isn't just technical—it's societal. 'Society, the technology, and the risk mitigation strategy will need to co-evolve,' Altman noted in his post. It's a rare moment of foresight in a space too often dominated by hype. You Might Also Like: Sam Altman's subtle sarcastic jab at Elon Musk adds new fuel to the billionaire feud


Mint
a day ago
- Business
- Mint
How Sam Altman outfoxed Elon Musk to become Trump's AI buddy
Just two weeks after Elon Musk's spectacular breakup with President Trump, the tech billionaire's nemesis strode into the dining room of the president's New Jersey golf club wearing a suit and a wide smile. Sam Altman, the 40-year-old chief executive of OpenAI, had just finished a long one-on-one meeting with Trump, and the two men were about to dine with the president's top donors. Trump introduced Altman to the club's applauding members as 'a very brilliant man," adding: 'I hope he's right about AI." That warm reception in June was a far cry from the cold shoulder Altman got in the first few weeks after Trump's election. Altman was estranged from Musk, his OpenAI co-founder, and Musk's new position as 'first buddy" had kept Altman out of meetings at Mar-a-Lago and in the overflow room at the inauguration rather than on the dais with his fellow tech CEOs. So Altman bided his time, quietly maneuvering around Musk. He put together AI infrastructure deals that Trump supported and avoided his former friend, who had sued OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, for allegedly betraying its mission. Altman forged his own relationship with the president, dining with him at Mar-a-Lago in March and speaking to him on the phone from time to time. A longtime Democrat who had once compared Trump to Hitler, Altman told associates he now regretted his harsh criticism during Trump's first campaign and term. On July 4, Altman posted on X that he was no longer a Democrat, saying the party had moved to the left so much that it had left him 'politically homeless." It was an opportune time to change political stripes. Musk's abrupt departure from Trump's inner circle has left an open lane for Altman to secure government support for a huge global AI infrastructure build-out he needs—and to have more influence over AI regulation. That could have implications on how the U.S. government approaches the role of AI in everything from defense contracts to energy policy. President Trump at a May 30 White House news conference with departing DOGE adviser Elon Musk. In a sign of Altman's rising influence, he will be the keynote speaker at a Federal Reserve conference later this month, addressing central bankers about AI's impact on the economy. 'President Trump is thinking big about American AI and building the infrastructure we need to stay ahead," said an OpenAI spokesperson. 'We look forward to continuing our work with him to grow the economy and make sure AI benefits everyone." This account of the behind-the-scenes relationship between Trump and Altman is based on interviews with White House officials, technology executives, lobbyists and political donors. Altman and Trump make for unlikely allies. For decades, Altman donated almost exclusively to Democrats, reflecting the progressive—if somewhat libertarian-tinged—values of his high-tech milieu. Altman endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 because, he wrote on his blog, 'Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to America." Trump was 'erratic, abusive and prone to fits of rage," Altman said, and his presidency would be 'a disaster for the American economy." Nearly everyone else in Silicon Valley other than his mentor Peter Thiel, Altman said, found him 'repugnant." Earlier that summer, Altman had written a blog post arguing that 'Trump is right about some big things," including 'that the economy is not growing nearly fast enough" and 'that we're drowning in political correctness." But he disagreed strongly with how Trump proposed to address these issues. 'To anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930s," he wrote in that post, 'it's chilling to watch Trump in action." Altman in 2016 at a conference in Dresden, Germany. He endorsed Hillary Clinton for president that year. At the same time, Altman was getting more concerned about the economic policy of Democrats. As the Biden administration readied its Covid-era economic stimulus, Altman warned his contacts in the government that the infusion would cause inflation and run up the national debt. He remained a loyal Democrat, though, donating $200,000 to Joe Biden's re-election campaign in 2023. Altman also was growing disillusioned with the Biden administration's AI policy. He considered the signature CHIPS and Science Act, which aimed to bring chip fabrication back onto American soil, to be laughably small in the roughly $50 billion it set aside for developing and producing the semiconductors, and wrongheaded in its desire to spread out money. The Biden administration's limits on exporting chips to countries where rivals like China might get hold of them thwarted Altman's yearslong efforts to build AI infrastructure in the Middle East—and attract investment from the region. In the spring of 2024, OpenAI started wooing Trump as part of the company's outreach to both parties. Altman and other OpenAI executives decided to appeal to Trump's background as a builder and his love of winners by framing OpenAI as the leader in the AI field, then to dazzle him with their technology. It worked. That June, OpenAI executives met Trump in a hotel in Las Vegas and showed off the then-unreleased text-to-video generator Sora, which would be sending cold shivers down Hollywood spines by the end of the year. They also made a case for government investment in AI infrastructure—and for sweeping aside local regulations and environmental reviews—to beat China. A couple of days later, Trump told podcaster Logan Paul that the U.S. needed to 'take the lead over China" in AI. 'The electricity needs are greater than anything we've ever needed before to do AI at the highest level. And China will produce it because they'll do whatever you have to do, whereas we have environmental impact people, and we have a lot of people trying to hold us back." By July's Republican National Convention, the need for an AI infrastructure build-out had become part of Trump's platform. A week later, Altman echoed the sentiment in an op-ed in the Washington Post, arguing that 'infrastructure is destiny" in the fight between 'democratic" AI controlled by the U.S. and its allies and 'authoritarian" AI controlled by countries like China and Russia. Although Altman's views were aligned with Trump on that, he neither donated to nor endorsed either candidate last year. But he continued to hammer his infrastructure point, publishing an essay that September that argued, 'If we want to put AI into the hands of as many people as possible, we need to drive down the cost of compute and make it abundant (which requires lots of energy and chips)." When Trump won, Altman might have had a willing partner for that agenda—were it not for Musk. By then, Musk had sued Altman and was competing against OpenAI with his own company, xAI. He also had become Trump's biggest donor and rarely left his side. Musk had even given a Trump-style nickname to Altman: 'Swindly Sam." So while other tech CEOs could fly down to Mar-a-Lago in the weeks after the election, Altman was stuck working through intermediaries. The closest he got was a tense meeting in Palm Beach with Howard Lutnick, Trump's then-nominee for Commerce secretary, who yelled at him for being a leftist. Chris LaCivita, an adviser to Trump's 2024 campaign, made introductions to people in Trump's circle. Realizing it needed outside help, OpenAI hired Jeff Miller, the influential MAGA lobbyist and fundraiser, and Chris LaCivita, an adviser to Trump's 2024 campaign, who both made introductions to people in Trump's circle. Another person who vouched for Altman was Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder, who had known Trump for years and was about to expand Oracle's business relationship with OpenAI. Altman donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration. That got him a ticket, but not a seat on the stage. The next day, he blindsided Musk by standing in the Oval Office with Trump for the announcement of a $500 billion partnership between OpenAI, Oracle and Japan's SoftBank—called Stargate—to build data centers to train and run AI models. Musk, after learning the details on television, attacked the deal in a series of posts on X, alleging that SoftBank lacked the money to fund the deal. Altman hit back on X that he was wrong. Musk dug up an old tweet of Altman praising venture capitalist Reid Hoffman for his role in preventing Trump's 2020 re-election. Altman responded with a post about his political evolution, saying that watching Trump 'more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him," adding 'i wish I had done more of my own thinking." He wrote, 'i'm not going to agree with him on everything, but i think he will be incredible for the country in many ways!" The spat got tense enough that Trump weighed in. 'He hates one of the people in the deal," Trump said in response to a reporter's question about whether Musk's criticisms of Stargate bothered him. 'People in the deal are very, very smart people, but Elon—one of the people he happens to hate. But I have certain hatreds of people, too." The message seemed clear: Trump wouldn't let criticism from Musk stand in the way of working with Altman. As soon as Trump took office, his administration began rolling out the kind of infrastructure-friendly policies that OpenAI had been lobbying for, including an executive order on Trump's first day—Unleashing American Energy—that would speed up permitting of energy projects. When OpenAI held an AI summit in Washington on Jan. 30, Trump's interior secretary, Doug Burgum, attended, and Kellyanne Conway, who served as senior counselor to Trump in his first term and remains close to the White House, sat in the front row. In March, Altman attended a dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago for donors who had each paid $1 million to his super PAC. Other diners that evening included David Sacks, Trump's AI czar. By May, OpenAI and the Trump administration were ready to announce the next step in the Stargate partnership with Oracle and SoftBank—a data center in Abu Dhabi. The deal was only possible because the administration had decided to roll back Biden-era restrictions on the export of chips, a change it planned to formalize during a tour of the Middle East that month. The plan was to build a gargantuan, five-gigawatt data center campus in Abu Dhabi to train and run AI models, in partnership with local tech company G42. OpenAI would get the first gigawatt, with subsequent tranches expected to go to other tech companies, including, most likely, Musk's xAI, though those weren't ready to be announced. Musk had been forging his own relationships with Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed, who controlled G42 and whose MGX fund invested in both xAI and OpenAI. On May 14, journalists traveling with the president were briefed on the announcement, which was expected to happen with Trump and OpenAI the next day. But when Musk got wind that Altman was on the Middle East trip and planned to stand with the president and G42 for the announcement, he began to pepper Trump aides and his contacts at G42 with complaints. The situation escalated to the level that Trump was pulled out of a meeting to address it. OpenAI and the Trump administration had planned to announce the next step in the Stargate partnership during the president's trip to the Middle East. Trump, above, toured a mosque in Abu Dhabi on May for the Stargate announcement changed after Musk got wind that Altman was on the trip. Trump speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One., after leaving Abu Dhabi. G42, concerned about Musk's outbursts, decided to pull the announcement. The journalists were told to hold their stories until further notice. To appease Musk, the White House agreed that no one from the U.S. government would be present during the announcement, and the news would be pushed back a week to when Trump's tour of the Middle East was finished. The deal was announced a week later, with less fanfare than initially planned. The episode bothered some senior White House staffers. Shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported on May 28 about Musk's attempts to block the deal, the Tesla CEO announced that he was leaving the White House and began to openly criticize Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill." After Trump declined to choose Musk's pick for head of NASA, Musk's criticism of the tax-and-spending bill escalated into a flame war for the ages, during which he called for Trump's impeachment. Within a week of the Abu Dhabi deal, Musk's relationship with Trump was in tatters. Altman, for his part, continued to forge closer ties. On June 16, OpenAI announced a $200 million contract with the Pentagon. The Trump administration is expected to unveil its AI action plan later this month. OpenAI has been lobbying for it to include measures that would make it easier to build AI infrastructure. The Journal has reported that the White House is considering giving federal land to tech companies for the data centers needed to train their models. Altman speaking to reporters earlier this month at the Allen & Co. media and technology conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. 'I believe in techno-capitalism," Altman recently posted on X, explaining his decision to leave the Democratic Party. 'We should encourage people to make tons of money and then also find ways to distribute wealth and share the compounding magic of capitalism." He outlined a worldview in which every year people grow richer through science and technology, that markets do a better job than government and education helps America keep its edge. 'I believed this when I was 20, when I was 30, and now I am 40 and still believe it," he said. 'The Democratic party seemed reasonably aligned with it when I was 20, losing the plot when I was 30, and completely to have moved somewhere else at this point. So now I am politically homeless." Altman doesn't consider himself a Republican, but has told people he could see himself voting Republican in the next election. Write to Keach Hagey at Dana Mattioli at and Josh Dawsey at


Qatar Tribune
2 days ago
- Business
- Qatar Tribune
SoftBank CEO pitches autonomous AI agent system for corporate use
Agencies SoftBank Group Corp Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said Wednesday the company is developing 'the world's first' artificial intelligence agent system that can autonomously perform complex tasks. 'The AI agents will think for themselves and improve on their the era of humans doing the programming is coming to an end,' Son told an event in Tokyo attended by business people. He revealed the new system will first be introduced at the technology conglomerate with 100 million clients and 50,000 employees and said such AI agents could work 24 hours a day to compile strategies, program and negotiate on behalf of humans. 'I'm excited to see how the AI agents will interact with one another and advance given tasks,' Son said, adding that the AI agents, to achieve the goals, will 'self-evolve and self-replicate' to execute subtasks. Unlike generative AI, which needs human commands to carry out tasks, an AI agent performs tasks on its own by designing workflows with data available to it. It is expected to enhance productivity at companies by helping their decision-making and problem-solving. The project comes as SoftBank Group and OpenAI, the developer of chatbot ChatGPT, said in February they had agreed to establish a joint venture to promote AI services for corporations. Joining Son virtually at the event, Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, underscored the significance of AI agents, calling the technology a 'remarkable step forward.' 'I think the first era of AI, initial era was about an AI that you could ask anything and it could tell you all these things,' Altman said. 'Now as these (AI) agents roll out, AI can do things for can ask the computer to do something in natural language, a sort of vaguely defined complex task, and it can understand you and execute it for you,' Altman said. 'The productivity and potential that it unlocks for the world is quite huge.'


NBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- NBC News
OpenAI's ChatGPT 'agent' is ready to assist you
Looking for a wedding dress? Let AI order it for you. That's the promise of OpenAI's new "agent," which the company debuted in a livestream Thursday. 'Agent represents a new level of capability for AI systems and can accomplish some remarkable, complex tasks for you using its own computer,' OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman said in an X post. The announcement adds OpenAI to a growing list of tech companies seeking to move AI beyond text and image generation and into the realm of personal digital assistants. Other companies are pushing AI into web browsers with the promise of helping people complete tasks like making a restaurant reservation. In a livestream broadcast on its website, OpenAI executives gave a demonstration showing how its "ChatGPT agent" software could perform specific tasks, like ordering a dress that would be appropriate for a warm-weather destination wedding. It was also able to design laptop stickers featuring their team mascot and create a slide deck of ChatGPT agent's performance, pulling data from Google Drive. The debut comes as tech companies invest heavily in AI talent and infrastructure, with almost every major player having already made sizable investments. Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook parent Meta, announced his company would spend 'hundreds of billions of dollars' on artificial intelligence compute infrastructure. Meta also poached a senior Apple engineer with a pay package reportedly valued at some $200 million. OpenAI was most recently valued at $300 billion, making it one of the most valuable privately held startups in the world. The presentation revealed ChatGPT agent to be not entirely free from making errors. Altman cautioned in his X post that he would "explain this to my own family as cutting edge and experimental; a chance to try the future, but not something I'd yet use for high-stakes uses or with a lot of personal information until we have a chance to study and improve it in the wild." The technology prompts users for when logins or permissions are needed while giving human users the ability to intervene or take over at any point. For now, its access is limited to ChatGPT Pro, Plus, and Team users. In a followup X post, Altman indicated he believes that despite its current limits, the product represents a breakthrough. "Watching chatgpt agent use a computer to do complex tasks has been a real 'feel the agi' moment for me; something about seeing the computer think, plan, and execute hits different," he wrote, using the acronym for Artificial General Intelligence, seen as the holy grail of AI development.