High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
Method
Browse
How the evidence works
← All source episodes

Lex Fridman Podcast / episode intelligence

#419 – Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI

18 Mar 2024 61 published claims 2 attributable people
Open original episode ↗ Read the evidence

Speakers in the public record

Sam AltmanLex Fridman

Claim mix

belief 40uncertainty 5prediction 5evaluation 4recommendation 2commitment 2preference 2observation 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

61 published records

01 / evaluation

It was nine and then it went down to six, and then we couldn’t agree on who to add. And the board also I think didn’t have a lot of experienced board members, and a lot of the new board members at OpenAI have just have more experience as board members.

“It was nine and then it went down to six, and then we couldn’t agree on who to add. And the board also I think didn’t have a lot of experienced board members, and a lot of the new board members at OpenAI have just have more experience as board members.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

04 / belief

The thing that OpenAI, I think, does really well… This is actually an original Ilya quote that I’m going to butcher, but it’s something like, “We multiply 200 medium-sized things together into one giant thing.

“The thing that OpenAI, I think, does really well… This is actually an original Ilya quote that I’m going to butcher, but it’s something like, “We multiply 200 medium-sized things together into one giant thing.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

05 / belief

We had to go do two things that had never been done before that were both I would say quite significant achievements and then a lot of things like scaling it up that other companies have had to do before.

“We had to go do two things that had never been done before that were both I would say quite significant achievements and then a lot of things like scaling it up that other companies have had to do before.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

07 / belief

I’m excited about being smarter. And I know that sounds like a glib answer, but I think the really special thing happening is that it’s not like it gets better in this one area and worse at others.

“I’m excited about being smarter. And I know that sounds like a glib answer, but I think the really special thing happening is that it’s not like it gets better in this one area and worse at others.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

09 / belief

In this case, and I think one of the things with our structure that we maybe should have thought about more than we did is that the board of a nonprofit has, unless you put other rules in place, quite a lot of power.

“In this case, and I think one of the things with our structure that we maybe should have thought about more than we did is that the board of a nonprofit has, unless you put other rules in place, quite a lot of power.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

10 / belief

Cummings, that mostly doesn’t use capitalization to say, “Fuck you” to the system kind of thing. And I think people are very paranoid, because they want you to follow the rules.

“Cummings, that mostly doesn’t use capitalization to say, “Fuck you” to the system kind of thing. And I think people are very paranoid, because they want you to follow the rules.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

11 / belief

I think before we talk about a GPT-5-like model called that, or not called that, or a little bit worse or a little bit better than what you’d expect from a GPT-5, I think we have a lot of other important things to release first.

“I think before we talk about a GPT-5-like model called that, or not called that, or a little bit worse or a little bit better than what you’d expect from a GPT-5, I think we have a lot of other important things to release first.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

13 / belief

We’re very early in our explorations here, but I think what people want, or at least what I want for myself, is a model that gets to know me and gets more useful to me over time.

“We’re very early in our explorations here, but I think what people want, or at least what I want for myself, is a model that gets to know me and gets more useful to me over time.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

14 / belief

I think I have a pretty straightforward answer to this that maybe I can think of more nuance later, but the pros seem obvious, which is that we get better products and more innovation faster and cheaper, and all the reasons competition is good.

“I think I have a pretty straightforward answer to this that maybe I can think of more nuance later, but the pros seem obvious, which is that we get better products and more innovation faster and cheaper, and all the reasons competition is good.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

19 / belief

We wanted to get new board members in place first, but we clearly learned a lesson about structure throughout this process. I don’t have, I think, super deep things to say.

“We wanted to get new board members in place first, but we clearly learned a lesson about structure throughout this process. I don’t have, I think, super deep things to say.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

21 / belief

I mean, if the question is if we can build a better search engine than Google or whatever, then sure, we should go, people should use the better product, but I think that would so understate what this can be.

“I mean, if the question is if we can build a better search engine than Google or whatever, then sure, we should go, people should use the better product, but I think that would so understate what this can be.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

22 / belief

I was so caught off guard that it has definitely changed, and I really don’t like this, it’s definitely changed how I think about just default trust of people and planning for the bad scenarios.

“I was so caught off guard that it has definitely changed, and I really don’t like this, it’s definitely changed how I think about just default trust of people and planning for the bad scenarios.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

23 / belief

I think the board members are well-meaning people on the whole, and I believe that in stressful situations where people feel time pressure or whatever, people understand and make suboptimal decisions.

“I think the board members are well-meaning people on the whole, and I believe that in stressful situations where people feel time pressure or whatever, people understand and make suboptimal decisions.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

25 / belief

Artists were also super worried when photography came out and then photography became a new art form and people made a lot of money taking pictures. I think things like that will keep happening.

“Artists were also super worried when photography came out and then photography became a new art form and people made a lot of money taking pictures. I think things like that will keep happening.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

27 / belief

We all gain from experience over the course of our lives in varying degrees, and I’d like my AI agent to gain with that experience too. So if we go back and let ourselves imagine that trillions and trillions of context length, if I can put every conversation I’ve ever had with anybody in my life in there, if I can have all of my emails input out, all of my input output in the context window every time I ask a question, that’d be pretty cool I think.

“We all gain from experience over the course of our lives in varying degrees, and I’d like my AI agent to gain with that experience too. So if we go back and let ourselves imagine that trillions and trillions of context length, if I can put every conversation I’ve ever had with anybody in my life in there, if I can have all of my emails input out, all of my input output in the context window every time I ask a question, that’d be pretty cool I think.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

29 / belief

Intelligence is going to be more like energy or something like that, where the only thing that I think makes sense to talk about is, at price X, the world will use this much compute, and at price Y, the world will use this much compute. Because if it’s really cheap, I’ll have it reading my email all day, giving me suggestions about what I maybe should think about or work on, and trying to cure cancer, and if it’s really expensive, maybe I’ll only use it, or we’ll only use it, to try to cure cancer.

“Intelligence is going to be more like energy or something like that, where the only thing that I think makes sense to talk about is, at price X, the world will use this much compute, and at price Y, the world will use this much compute. Because if it’s really cheap, I’ll have it reading my email all day, giving me suggestions about what I maybe should think about or work on, and trying to cure cancer, and if it’s really expensive, maybe I’ll only use it, or we’ll only use it, to try to cure cancer.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

32 / uncertainty

I don’t know if you know humans, but that’s one of the dangers. That’s one of the security threats for nuclear fission, is humans seem to be really afraid of it.

“I don’t know if you know humans, but that’s one of the dangers. That’s one of the security threats for nuclear fission, is humans seem to be really afraid of it.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

34 / belief

I think the past is a lot. I mean, we just look at what humanity has done in a not very long period of time, huge problems, deep flaws, lots to be super-ashamed of.

“I think the past is a lot. I mean, we just look at what humanity has done in a not very long period of time, huge problems, deep flaws, lots to be super-ashamed of.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

35 / belief

I think a mistake that you or I might make is to think that only the technical understanding matters, and that’s definitely part of the conversation you want that board to have, but there’s a lot more about how that’s going to just impact society and people’s lives that you really want represented in there too.

“I think a mistake that you or I might make is to think that only the technical understanding matters, and that’s definitely part of the conversation you want that board to have, but there’s a lot more about how that’s going to just impact society and people’s lives that you really want represented in there too.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

37 / belief

You and I may have different opinions about where on that privacy utility trade off for our own AI- …opinions about where on that privacy/utility trade-off for OpenAI going to be, which is totally fine. But I think the answer is just really easy user choice.

“You and I may have different opinions about where on that privacy utility trade off for our own AI- …opinions about where on that privacy/utility trade-off for OpenAI going to be, which is totally fine. But I think the answer is just really easy user choice.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

41 / observation

Most people don’t need all the way to 128 most of the time. Although if we dream into the distant future, we’ll have way distant future, we’ll have context length of several billion.

“Most people don’t need all the way to 128 most of the time. Although if we dream into the distant future, we’ll have way distant future, we’ll have context length of several billion.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

47 / belief

I think if you give people great tools and teach them to use them or don’t even teach them, they’ll figure it out, and let them go build an incredible future for each other with that, that’s a big deal.

“I think if you give people great tools and teach them to use them or don’t even teach them, they’ll figure it out, and let them go build an incredible future for each other with that, that’s a big deal.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

50 / belief

I think we’ve had our flare-ups, for sure, like any company, but I don’t think we have anything like what I hear about happened at other companies here on this topic.

“I think we’ve had our flare-ups, for sure, like any company, but I don’t think we have anything like what I hear about happened at other companies here on this topic.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

53 / prediction

I think that’s less important than the question you were getting at, which is, do we need a way to do a slower kind of thinking, where the answer doesn’t have to get… I guess spiritually you could say that you want an AI to be able to think harder about a harder problem and answer more quickly about an easier problem. And I think that will be important.

“I think that’s less important than the question you were getting at, which is, do we need a way to do a slower kind of thinking, where the answer doesn’t have to get… I guess spiritually you could say that you want an AI to be able to think harder about a harder problem and answer more quickly about an easier problem. And I think that will be important.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

54 / preference

Unlike hiring an executive where you need them to do one role well, the board needs to do a whole role of governance and thoughtfulness well, and so, one thing that Brett says which I really like is that we want to hire board members in slates, not as individuals one at a time.

“Unlike hiring an executive where you need them to do one role well, the board needs to do a whole role of governance and thoughtfulness well, and so, one thing that Brett says which I really like is that we want to hire board members in slates, not as individuals one at a time.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

55 / prediction

I expect that by the end of this decade, and possibly somewhat sooner than that, we will have quite capable systems that we look at and say, “Wow, that’s really remarkable.

“I expect that by the end of this decade, and possibly somewhat sooner than that, we will have quite capable systems that we look at and say, “Wow, that’s really remarkable.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

56 / evaluation

I think that’s a way more interesting, impactful, important question than how many jobs AI can do because it is a tool that will work at increasing levels of sophistication and over longer and longer time horizons for more and more tasks and let people operate at a higher level of abstraction.

“I think that’s a way more interesting, impactful, important question than how many jobs AI can do because it is a tool that will work at increasing levels of sophistication and over longer and longer time horizons for more and more tasks and let people operate at a higher level of abstraction.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

57 / prediction

I thought at some point between when OpenAI started and when we created AGI, there was going to be something crazy and explosive that happened, but there may be more crazy and explosive things still to happen.

“I thought at some point between when OpenAI started and when we created AGI, there was going to be something crazy and explosive that happened, but there may be more crazy and explosive things still to happen.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

58 / evaluation

I think the question behind that question is, do people who create valuable data deserve to have some way that they get compensated for use of it, and that I think the answer is yes.

“I think the question behind that question is, do people who create valuable data deserve to have some way that they get compensated for use of it, and that I think the answer is yes.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

59 / prediction

It’s closer to a beginning, but it’s much more of a mile marker than either of those things. But what I would say, in the interest of not trying to dodge a question, is I expect that by the end of this decade and possibly somewhat sooner than that, we will have quite capable systems that we look at and say, “Wow, that’s really remarkable.

“It’s closer to a beginning, but it’s much more of a mile marker than either of those things. But what I would say, in the interest of not trying to dodge a question, is I expect that by the end of this decade and possibly somewhat sooner than that, we will have quite capable systems that we look at and say, “Wow, that’s really remarkable.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

60 / evaluation

In fact, one of the things that I used to have and was super valuable was I used to have a good map of all or most of the frontiers in the tech industry. And I could sometimes see these connections or new things that were possible that if I were only deep in one area, I wouldn’t be able to have the idea for because I wouldn’t have all the data.

“In fact, one of the things that I used to have and was super valuable was I used to have a good map of all or most of the frontiers in the tech industry. And I could sometimes see these connections or new things that were possible that if I were only deep in one area, I wouldn’t be able to have the idea for because I wouldn’t have all the data.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

61 / preference

I’m sure there’s an ad unit that makes sense for LLMs, and I’m sure there’s a way to participate in the transaction stream in an unbiased way that is okay to do, but it’s also easy to think about the dystopic visions of the future where you ask ChatGPT something and it says, “Oh, you should think about buying this product,” or, “You should think about going here for your vacation,” or whatever. And I don’t know, we have a very simple business model and I like it, and I know that I’m not the product.

“I’m sure there’s an ad unit that makes sense for LLMs, and I’m sure there’s a way to participate in the transaction stream in an unbiased way that is okay to do, but it’s also easy to think about the dystopic visions of the future where you ask ChatGPT something and it says, “Oh, you should think about buying this product,” or, “You should think about going here for your vacation,” or whatever. And I don’t know, we have a very simple business model and I like it, and I know that I’m not the product.”
Speaker
Sam Altman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast
Search evidence