Sam Altman says OpenAI wants to sell intelligence like a utility

During a recent appearance at BlackRock in Washington, D.C., OpenAI’s Sam Altman, shared his vision for the future of AI. At one point saying, “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”

Altman was describing a world where AI becomes a foundational infrastructure, something woven into everyday life so deeply that consumers and businesses simply “plug into” it the same way they rely on electricity, Wi-Fi or running water.

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    I’m genuinely curious which part of your reply we should interpret as intelligence?

    If anything, these are Iterations, which I’ll add to the list.

    • hard_zero1@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 days ago

      All of this is intelligence in my opinion. It may be far less intelligent than some human, but it still is (impressively, in my opinion) intelligent for a computer. Obviously, intelligence is very hard to define precisely. But LLMs can solve some nontrivial problems they have never seen before in that exact form and without existence of a clear algorithm to find a solution. And it even has some utility in many cases, as the comment describes. This is clearly intelligence. Even if it may not hold up to some promises made about them or people using it in inappropriate ways.

      Btw., your original comment is very antidemocratic, as you demand to exclude groups of people from decisions, just because you don’t like what they think!

      • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        The tokens burned to extrude this clearly qualify for a monstrous bulk discount.

        Why would one’s exposure to raw sewage be decided democratically? I’d prefer experts with proven qualifications to be in control of such decisions, not a clown convulsing in the tank naked covered raw whip marks.

        • hard_zero1@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 days ago

          Democracy is supposed to ensure as good as possible that everyone’s interests are considered. For example those of the people affected by sewage, which might not affect the experts you’d like to be in control. Also, after what you wrote, I don’t trust you to judge who is an actual expert with good intentions to put in charge. And you likely don’t trust me with this either. So we should probably have the same say. And if the experts in charge would at some point be (as they already somewhat are) the CEOs of AI companies, you would probably also like to have a say, just as everyone else.

          AI usage for this comment: DeepL and the translator in DuckDuckGo for spelling and translation, e.g. of “sewage” and “convulsing” (what the heck is this last half sentence you wrote there, btw?)