- Sam Altman appeared on The Tonight Show to highlight ChatGPT’s global growth and positive impact.
- He called artificial intelligence a “balancing force” that gives people powerful tools in everyday life.
- While Altman acknowledged the risks, he remains optimistic about the future of artificial intelligence and OpenAI’s responsibilities.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took a kind of victory lap, mixed with warnings tonight’s performance This week, he told host Jimmy Fallon that ChatGPT’s meteoric rise has been a huge blessing, but it has also come with some growing pains.
Altman tended toward optimism, but perhaps not toward blind encouragement. He shared his belief that artificial intelligence, especially the systems emerging from OpenAI, is helping to change society in profoundly positive ways. He compared the rise of ChatGPT to the global expansion of smartphones.
“I think technology has a lot of downsides, but it also has a lot of upsides. And one of the upsides is that it’s kind of a balancing force in a lot of ways,” Altman said. “The richest and most powerful person in the world has the same hardware as billions of people. And I think artificial intelligence is moving in the same direction.”
Sam Altman says technology is society’s greatest equalizer | Tonight’s Show – YouTube
Although Altman is one of the architects behind the current AI boom, he isn’t necessarily a familiar face to casual viewers. But he wanted to change that by personally pitching his pro-AI policies to Fallon, explaining that more than 800 million people now use ChatGPT every week.
“This is a three-year-old technology,” he added. “No other technology in the world has been adopted so quickly. This is truly universal.”
For Altman, this speed means people vote with their time and confidence. They don’t use ChatGPT as a novelty, but as a tool for all kinds of tasks in their lives. Artificial intelligence helps them write instructions, program software, make travel plans and manage their daily lives.
Think of AI, especially its implementation in ChatGPT, as a distribution of power, not a concentration of it. Yes, OpenAI is backed by Microsoft and has billions of cloud computing. But he says the results have been mixed.
AI everywhere
Although GPT-5.2 is reportedly launching this week, he did not appear on Fallon’s stage to make an announcement or reveal a product. The fact that he has nothing to connect suggests that he just wants people to believe that ChatGPT and artificial intelligence as a whole are useful innovations.
However, Altman did not ignore the complications of artificial intelligence during 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, be involved and create security. “As you can imagine, we do things wrong.”
On the surface, Altman presented an eloquent argument, although this was not the place to explore the broader issues surrounding the development and use of AI tools. There was no room to discuss issues of privacy, ownership and use of content, or methods of artificial intelligence and the potentially dangerous economic fate of the technology.
Altman’s foray into late-night television wasn’t spectacular, but his vision of artificial intelligence as a utopian equalizer is certainly colorful. Whether this leads to long-term success may depend on what you do next.