At a time when the integration of artificial intelligence in workplaces is posing a threat to the future of many jobs, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has said that he wants the company to eventually have AI as its chief.
During the Conversations with Tyler podcast, Altman said, "Shame on me if OpenAI is not the first big company run by an AI CEO." He added, “I find this a very interesting thought experiment of what would have to happen for an AI CEO to be able to do a much, much better job of running OpenAI than me, which clearly will happen someday. But how can we accelerate that?"
Altman added that the possibility of AI running entire departments in a company could be "single-digit years" away. The challenge, according to him, in AI taking over as the CEO of a company lies in the trust that humans have on humans, even if it is irrational. “People have a great deal higher trust in other people over AI. The AI doctor is better, but you want the human whatever. So, I think it may take much longer for society to get really comfortable with this and for people in an organisation to get really comfortable with this,” he said.
In an earlier conversation with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, Altman had said that the idea of AI taking over jobs does not scare him. As for what he will do when he does not wear the chief executive's hat, Altman said he will probably become a farmer. "I have a farm that I live on some of the time, and I really love it, and it sounds like a wonderful change of pace," said the Silicon Valley heavyweight, who owns multiple properties, including in San Francisco, Napa and Hawaii.
