‘Humans are going to do their human things’: Sam Altman says AI won’t radically transforming the world in the near term.

Sam Altman and his most prominent ally, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, discussed at a forum what the future holds for a technology which excites and frightens.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says ‘we are making a tool that is impressive, but humans are going to do their human things’ and ‘people will go on with their lives’.

Sam Altman and his most prominent ally, Satya Nadella, took to the stage together to talk about their partnership and what the future holds for a technology that both excites and frightens people.

The CEOs of OpenAI and Microsoft, respectively, have together been through a lot these last few months, including Altman’s firing and rehiring by OpenAI’s board in November and Nadella’s crucial support of him through the drama.

In Wednesday’s session during the annual World Economic Forum, they were aligned on many topics, but not all.

Both talked about the promise of generative artificial intelligence, a technology that allows computers to generate everything from photorealistic images and plausible marketing plans to functioning computer code.

Altman played down the possibility that fast-improving AI technology would radically transform the world in the near term, saying rather that it would improve inexorably over a longer period and eventually have significant impact.

“The world had a two-week freakout with GPT4,” he said, referring to the launch last year of OpenAI’s latest version of its chatbot, which fuelled predictions of the imminent arrival of artificial general intelligence, or machines as smart as humans. “And now, people are like, ‘Why is it so slow?’” Altman said.

“People will go on with their lives,” he said. “We are making a tool that is impressive, but humans are going to do their human things.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the world is within reach of a “magical moment”.

Nadella emphasised a bullish outlook. He said the world is within reach of a “magical moment” akin to the widespread adoption of the personal computer. “I hope we as a global community grab onto it.”

Nadella said he expected many positive impacts for workers, arguing they would become more productive and should see wages rise accordingly. He also said the availability of AI tools could help workers in numerous ways including easing mid-career transitions — though he allowed that some wages might “get commoditised to some extent.”

Altman struck a more cautious note on the technology’s impact on the labour market. “We always find new things to do, and yet it does seem somewhat different if AI can, like, have more cognitive power than any of us,” he said. “We have no idea what happens next.”

The two CEOs also defended the independence of their companies, a relationship that has drawn scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the U.K. and European Union over whether they should regard the partnership as a de facto acquisition. Microsoft has agreed to invest $13 billion in the artificial-intelligence pioneer in exchange for what is essentially a 49% stake in the earnings of its for-profit arm.

Nadella and Altman drew an implicit contrast with Alphabet’s Google, which develops its own AI models and commercialises them via its cloud services. The men argued that their partnership serves competition.

“You can look at the vertically integrated option and you can look at our partnership and you can decide which is more pro-competition,” Altman said.

Google wasn’t immediately reached for comment.

As for the potential that OpenAI’s board might later step in to interrupt their partnership, given the dust-up in November, Altman said he didn’t expect that it would.

“I believe in learning lessons early,” he said, to laughter in the room, “when the stakes are relatively low.”