Sam Altman predicts that by 2030 AI will surpass human intelligence

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is Bullish that not only general artificial intelligence – AI that surpasses human capacities – will be achieved in the very near future, but that there may soon be breakthroughs that will only be feasible by using AI.

In a broad and frank interview that included everything, from how Altman thinks that his own child will deal with the technology to what he does not use chatgpt, Altman may not have been surprisingly optimistic about the ability to tailor the technology to human values.

He also gave a glimpse into the hardware ambitions of OpenAi, hints to a final ‘family of devices’ and expressed other contemplations about an AI future.

Welt editor-in-chief Jan Philipp Burgard interviewed this week OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on behalf of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network this week in Berlin, where Altman received the Axel Springer Award this year.

The next Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Welt: Sam, what quality of you will artificial intelligence never be able to replace?

Sam Altman: I think we know. But something that is really unique is how many people care about other people and what they do, how many people want to communicate with other people.

I think these qualities will become increasingly important in the world of AI. We have an incredible tool at our disposal, but we still have to find out what to do, what other people want and what other people will find useful.

Artificial intelligence develops quickly. When exactly do you think there will be a super intelligence that is smarter than people in all aspects?

In many ways, GPT5 is already smarter than me, at least, I think many other people too.

GPT5 is able to do incredible things that many people find very impressive. But it is also unable to do many things that people can do easily.

That will be the case for a while, because people use these tools and apply their human insight, creativity and ingenuity in really important ways. However, I expect that the process of the progress of AI will remain extremely steep.

In just three years since Chatgpt was launched, the models have become much more capable. And I don’t see a sign that it slows down. In a few more years it will be very plausible for AI to make scientific discoveries that people cannot do alone. For me that will start to feel like something that we could call super intelligence.

Is there a exactly year in which you expect this super intelligence to arise?

I would certainly say that by the end of this decade, by 2030, if we don’t have extraordinarily capable models that do things that we cannot do ourselves, I would be very surprised.

Even if we see no similar progress that we saw in 2024 and 2025 in 2026, I would also be surprised. That means that at the end of 2026 I would expect models that, if we had them today, would be pretty surprising.

What percentage of today’s jobs could disappear in the near future?

Think about the jobs that we did 30 years ago that may not exist today, or new jobs that were difficult to imagine 30 years ago that are now commonplace.

I read a statistics that about half of the jobs in society changes every 75 years. That is even without AI. It can happen and I expect it to happen faster now.

I find it useful to think about tasks, not the percentage of jobs. There will be many jobs where much of what it means to do that work changes. Of course there will be completely new jobs. And many existing jobs will disappear completely and will be replaced by these new jobs.

But it is more interesting, from everyone’s jobs, what percentage of the tasks you do every day is done by AI? I can easily imagine a world where 30 to 40% of the tasks that take place today in the economy are performed by AI in the not very distant future.

You became father this year. What training would you advise your son to pursue, so that his job is not easily replaced by AI in 30 years?

The meta-skill of learning how to learn, learn to adjust, learn to be resilient for a lot of change. I mentioned this before, but learn to find out what people want, how you can make useful products and services for them and how you can deal with the world.

I am convinced that people will still be the center of the story. Everything in that world will be great. I am also convinced that human desire for new things, desire to be useful for other people, and desire to express our creativity are all unlimited.

People rightly wonder, in all these earlier technological revolutions, what we are all going to do. These machines came in the industrial era. We saw them doing the things we used to do and said, “What would our role be?”

Every new generation uses its creativity, new ideas and all the tools that the previous generation has built for them to surprise us. I am sure my children will do the same.

You sound very optimistic, but there are also AI critics. Researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky says, for example, that the relationship between super intelligence and people is about the same as the relationship between people and ants. Do you fear that AI will eventually see us as ants and will simply destroy us?

I have heard many people describe many different ways to present the relationship between AI and humanity.

The person who has always been my favorite is my fellow founder, Ilya Sutkever, who once said that he hoped that the way an artificial general intelligence would treat humanity, or all Agis would treat humanity if a loving parent is. If we ask that question, we are a kind of anthropomorphizing Agi.

I believe that this tool will be enormously capable. Even if it has no intentionality, it can ask to do something consequences that we do not understand. It is therefore very important that we tune it to human values. I don’t think it will treat people like ants.

Critics accuse you of transforming OpenAI of a non -profit institution in a commercial company and to partially ignore the security risks in the process. Do you agree with this criticism? Or do you think you sometimes just have to move forward to make progress?

First, we still have a non -profit entity, and we will always do that. I hope we have the best and hopefully the most impactful non-profit of all time. This is very important for our mission.

The management role of this is also important for our mission, as ensures that we adhere to our mission and give priority to safety, well -being and the maximum benefit of humanity.

We have clearly made some mistakes because we understand that we will make more with this new technology in the future. But in general I am extremely proud of the track record of our team about figuring out how these services can make safe, broadly advantageous and widely distributed.

One of our core beliefs is that if we find out how we can build this tool, tune into human values ​​and then put it in the hands of people and let them express all the things they want to do with it, that will be great for the world and be deep in accordance with our mission.

The world looks at the hardware innovation of OpenAi. You have hired an Apple designer for this. We can assume that the device looks good, but what will it do?

It will look good.

Two major revolutions in computer use have occurred: the mouse and the keyboard and the idea of ​​the monitor that displays this type of window system. That was certainly a breakthrough. Then we had the touch devices that adjusted it, switching off the mouse and let your finger use, making it a very personal device. This was huge.

Fundamentally we have never had anything as powerful as AI. Computers can really understand what we want, can think, so that we can again consider what it could mean to use a computer. So we still explore. It will cost us for quite some time. Don’t expect anything quickly.

But over time I expect that we will make a small family of devices. They will certainly look good, but that is not the most important thing. I hope that if we do very well, they will change what it means to use a computer, how you do your work and how you play and lead your life. But there is a lot of work and much to explore between here and there.

Can you give me an example of one function or possibilities that such a device could have?

At the moment, if you want to perform a task on a computer, you must click around and go between a number of applications. If it is a difficult task, it can take you for a while. One of the promises of AI is that you can say something complexes that should happen in the course of a day, a month or even a year.

You can simply trust that the computer will understand, do it before you do it and return to you when it needs help. But you can imagine that you ask a computer a very nuanced, complex but short question and then simply trust that it will do the right thing and returns to you if it needs help. That would completely change what it feels like to use the computer instead of launching a number of apps and having reports that are constantly emerging. So that’s one thing.

The American technical industry has long had a liberal-democratic tone. Now many technical leaders show their support to Donald Trump. How do you explain this atmosphere shift?

The technical industry should collaborate with who the US president is. But in this specific case, I think there have been a number of welcome policy changes. The possibility of building infrastructure in the US has been quite difficult and fairly important for companies such as ours. President Trump has done great work to support this. A generally more pro-business and pro-tech climate has also been a welcome change.

The US is very polarized, downright distributed. What do you think of the idea of ​​simply having AI rule instead of an American president in the future?

I don’t think people want that soon. However, what I expect is that presidents and leaders around the world will use AI more and more to help them with complex decisions. But I think we all still want a person, that is about that.

To complete, many people receive relationship advice from Chatgpt. Have you ever asked your own bone for help with relationship problems?

I don’t use it as much as other people. I tried it, but no, that’s not one of my big cases for personal use. But it is clearly something that many people use it for.