Sam Altman has claimed the next stage of ChatGPT's development is so fast and powerful, it's left him genuinely scared.
Altman's comments come from his appearance on the This Past Weekend with Theo Von podcast, where he also suggested AI conversations should have legal confidentiality.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: "It feels very fast." - "While testing GPT5 I got scared" - "Looking at it thinking: What have we done... like in the Manhattan Project"- "There are NO ADULTS IN THE ROOM" from r/ChatGPT
The OpenAI CEO is clearly on the war path ahead of ChatGPT's imminent GPT-5 upgrade, which we expect to launch in August.
Confirming on the show the new model “feels very fast”, Altman went on to compare its development to the Manhattan Project and said he felt nervous and scared over what he'd helped build.
There are moments in the history of science, where you have a group of scientists look at their creation and just say, you know: ‘What have we done?
Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI
In addition, Altman — who has been running OpenAI since 2019 — claimed the lightning pace of AI is far outpacing any oversight that could be put in place and that it feels like “there are no adults in the room”.
The OpenAI CEO wasn’t pushed on exactly what part of ChatGPT’s next stage gave him the most cause for concern, and he didn’t share any technical details on what users could expect. But citing such a historical example like this doesn’t inspire much confidence that OpenAI is firmly in control of its creation.
“There are moments in the history of science, where you have a group of scientists look at their creation and just say, you know: ‘What have we done?’” Altman told the host.
“Maybe it’s great, maybe it’s bad, but what have we done?”
GPT-5: The destroyer of worlds?
This isn’t the first time that Sam Altman has acknowledged his fears over the growth of the AI industry. OpenAI has the likes of Google and Microsoft snapping at its heels and Altman probably knows GPT-5 will be the cornerstone of keeping those competitors at bay for the rest of the year.
A cynic may say Altman’s comments are a calculated move to drive more people to use GPT-5 when it finally does arrive. And there's no doubt ChatGPT's paid-for subscriptions will get plenty of new features to make them even more appealing. But given Altman's proximity to the epicenter of AI development, if his comments are genuine they should be cause for concern.
In addition to being faster, GPT-5 should be proficient at multi-step processes and possess a longer memory window. So while you’ll get your answer faster, you’ll also be able to link elements of developing a project together more seamlessly.
When you consider GPT-5 will also have better multimodal input and allow users to integrate voice, images, graphics and files alongside standard text, you can see how potentially powerful it will be. But still, a comparison to the Manhattan Project is probably not what everyone wants to hear right now.
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