Sam Altman says OpenAI will have AGI by the end of 2026 if you accept his definition
OpenAI's leadership believes AGI is within reach, according to a TIME report. The company's upcoming model Astra already works as an automated research intern, according to chief scientist Jakub Pachocki. Whether it can actually "invent new things in a way that matters," as Altman claims, is heavily debated.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is convinced his company will have an internal system he'd call artificial general intelligence (AGI) by the end of the year, even though they're "not quite yet" there. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen estimates OpenAI is "80% of the way" to AGI. Co-founder Greg Brockman believes people will look back on this period as the moment AGI emerged.
That's according to an extensive TIME report by Alex Heath, who spent more than two weeks interviewing over 20 executives, employees, investors, and rivals.
Astra is meant to work as an automated AI research intern
At the center of this AGI confidence is Astra, OpenAI's upcoming model family. This is the system OpenAI announced last year as an automated AI research intern.
Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki told TIME that Astra already hits that internal benchmark. Hand it an experimental idea, and it can write the code in OpenAI's codebase, run the experiment, and report back with results. Give it a research paper, and it can handle work that would have taken a human researcher about a week.
Astra also enables "persistent agents," virtual coworkers that tackle tasks on their own over longer periods. Altman sees the biggest payoff in generating new knowledge. "I expect this will be the first model where the model actually invents new things in a way that matters," he said during a customer preview, according to TIME. "That's a very AGI-like thing."
The underlying wager is that a system like this could kick off recursive self-improvement, where AI helps make itself better. Opinions are split. Some researchers think that kind of capability is still far off. Others see early signs it's already happening.
More broadly, there's real debate over whether AI built purely on language models can truly make new discoveries and generalize, which seems like a basic requirement for AGI. The term itself has no precise definition, though, so it's partly a matter of interpretation. OpenAI defines AGI as "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work," a heavily economics-driven reading. Others argue that more is needed, like a robust understanding of the world, and that LLMs are just one piece of the puzzle.
AI puck hardware expected in early 2027
OpenAI is working on a "small handful" of devices, according to Altman: "something that belongs on a table," something for your pocket, and something you wear, TIME reports. The first will be a small, puck-shaped device that senses its surroundings and talks to its owner via voice mode. It's expected early next year, according to TIME. Altman added that OpenAI will "definitely" build humanoid robots as well.
Beyond the lofty ambitions, OpenAI has to solve a much more mundane problem: paying for all of it. The company's answer is tighter product focus. The key move is combining Codex, its coding agent, with ChatGPT in a project internally called "The Merge." That effort produced ChatGPT Work, which is supposed to put agentic AI in front of a mass audience. Instead of just answering questions, it handles tasks. Thibault Sottiaux, the product lead running the project, told TIME that OpenAI is "close" to shipping something with "persistence and always-on execution." "It's definitely going to feel like a new thing to people."
OpenAI is also experimenting with new ways to make money. Ads inside ChatGPT have performed well enough in early tests that leadership is ramping up the volume, TIME reports. The ad revenue could help cover costs for the 92 percent of ChatGPT consumer users who don't pay for a subscription, according to CFO Sarah Friar. The company is also testing "Sponsored Agents," a format where clicking an ad drops users into a brand-hosted AI experience.
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