- Sam Altman appeared on The Tonight Show to highlight the global growth and positive impact of ChatGPT.
- He called AI an “equalizing force” that brings powerful tools to everyday people.
- While acknowledging the risks, Altman remained optimistic about the future of AI and OpenAI’s responsibility.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took a victory lap of sorts mixed with cautionary warnings about tonight’s show This week, I told host Jimmy Fallon that ChatGPT’s meteoric rise has been a boon, but it comes with some growing pains.
Altman leaned toward optimism, though perhaps not blind impulse. He shared his belief that AI, particularly the systems emerging from OpenAI, is helping to reshape society in profoundly positive ways. He compared the rise of ChatGPT to the global expansion of the smartphone.
“I think there are a lot of downsides to technology, but there are also a lot of upsides to technology. And one of the upsides is that it’s kind of an equalizing force in a lot of ways,” Altman said. “The richest and most powerful person in the world got the same piece of hardware that, you know, billions of people got. And I think AI is moving in the same direction.”
Look
Although he is one of the architects of the current AI boom, Altman is not necessarily a face familiar to casual television audiences. However, he set out to change that by presenting his case for AI in person to Fallon, explaining that more than 800 million people now use ChatGPT weekly.
“That is a technology that is three years old,” he added. “No other technology has ever been… adopted by the world so quickly. It’s truly a general-purpose thing.”
For Altman, that speed means that people vote with their time and confidence. They are using ChatGPT not as a novelty but as a tool for all kinds of tasks in their lives. AI is helping them write resumes, code software, generate travel plans, and manage their daily lives.
He sees AI, especially as implemented in ChatGPT, as a distribution of power, not a concentration of it. Yes, OpenAI is backed by Microsoft and has billions of dollars in cloud computing. But the result, he argued, is shared.
AI everywhere
Notably, he didn’t arrive on Fallon’s stage to make an announcement or introduce a product, despite the rumored launch of GPT-5.2 this week. Having nothing to connect suggests that you really just want people to believe that ChatGPT and AI as a whole are useful innovations.
However, Altman did not ignore the complications of AI in his interview.
“One of the things that worries me,” he admitted, “is just the pace of change that’s happening in the world right now.” But he wants people to adapt, intervene and build barriers. “You could imagine we were wrong.”
On a surface level, Altman made an eloquent case, although it was not the right place to explore the larger questions surrounding how AI tools are developed and used. There was no space to discuss issues of privacy, content ownership and use, or the resources dedicated to AI and the technology’s potentially dangerous economic fate.
Altman’s journey into late-night television wasn’t flashy, but his vision of AI as a utopian equalizer is certainly colorful. Whether that translates into long-term success may depend on what you do next.
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