Sam Altman's New Year Outlook: As the AI revolution gets underway, the first AI agents are expected to join the workforce this year

It has been just over a month since ChatGPT's second birthday, and we have now entered the era of models capable of complex reasoning. The new year always prompts reflection, and I would like to take this opportunity to share some personal insights from this journey, as well as some of the gains along the way.

As we get closer to AGI, this is an important moment to look back on the progress our company has made. There are still many unknowns to explore, and many questions yet to be solved, as everything is still in the early stages. But compared to when we first started, we have learned a great deal.

We founded OpenAI about nine years ago because we believed that AGI is possible and has the potential to be the most impactful technology in human history. We wanted to find ways to build AGI and ensure it can broadly benefit humanity; at the same time, we also yearned to write our own page in history. Our goals are immense, and we firmly believe that this work can give back to society in an equally grand way.

At that time, almost no one cared about AGI. If anyone did, most thought we would not succeed.

In 2022, OpenAI was still a low-profile research lab, developing a project temporarily called "Chat With GPT-3.5." (We were better at research than naming.) We noticed that developers really enjoyed the experience of conversing with the model through the API's playground feature. So we thought that building a demo around this conversational experience could not only showcase the future's possibilities but also help us improve the model's performance and safety.

Ultimately, we decided to call it ChatGPT and launched it on November 30, 2022.

We had a vague sense that the AI revolution would come someday, but we didn't know what that moment would be like. To our surprise, this release became that turning point.

The launch of ChatGPT sparked an unprecedented wave of growth - in our company, across the industry, and globally. We finally saw the immense potential of AI and could foresee more breakthroughs on the horizon.

This path has not been smooth, and making the right choices has never been easy.

Over the past two years, we've essentially built an entire company from scratch around this new technology. Facing such challenges, the only way to learn is through practice. When the technology itself is entirely new, no one can tell you exactly what to do.

Establishing a company at such a rapid pace, with almost no existing experience to draw from, is inevitably chaotic. We often take two steps forward and one step back (sometimes even one step forward and two steps back). While mistakes are constantly being corrected, there are almost no ready-made manuals or clear directions when venturing into uncharted territory. Rapidly advancing into the unknown is an exhilarating experience, but it is also a tremendous source of pressure for all involved. Conflicts and misunderstandings are inevitable.

These years have been the most rewarding, interesting, and fulfilling, as well as the most exhausting and stressful, of my life. Especially the past two years, which have been the most difficult, but my deepest feeling is one of gratitude. I know that one day, when I'm retired and sitting on a farm watching plants grow, feeling a bit bored, I'll look back on the opportunity to realize a childhood dream, and how fortunate that was. I try to remind myself of this every Friday, even when there are seven things that have gone wrong by 1 PM.

About a year ago, on one such Friday, the unexpected event that caught me off guard was being abruptly fired during a video call, with no warning whatsoever. Immediately after we hung up, the board published a blog post announcing the decision. I was in a hotel room in Las Vegas at the time, and the feeling is almost indescribable, like a dream suddenly turning into a nightmare.

Being publicly fired without any forewarning led to hours of chaos and days of uncertainty. The strangest part was the "information fog" - none of us could get clear answers about what had happened or the reasons behind it.

In my view, this was a governance failure, even though everyone involved, including myself, acted in good faith. Looking back, I certainly wish I had handled things differently. I like to believe that I am more mature and thoughtful today than I was a year ago.

This incident made me realize that a board needs diverse perspectives and deep experience to navigate complex challenges. Good governance requires a foundation of deep trust and credibility. I'm grateful that many have worked together to establish a stronger governance system for OpenAI, allowing us to continue pursuing our mission of AGI for the benefit of all humanity.

The biggest realization I've had this past year is that I have so much to be thankful for, and so many people to thank: the colleagues at OpenAI who chose to dedicate their time and energy to realizing this dream; the friends who supported us in times of crisis; the customers and partners who have trusted us, worked with us, and relied on our technology to succeed; and the people in my life who have expressed care and concern.

After that, we re-engaged with our work in a more united and positive way. I'm immensely proud of the focus we've shown since then. We've accomplished some of what I would consider OpenAI's best research work ever. Our weekly active users have grown from around 100 million to over 300 million. Most importantly, we've continued to introduce technologies that people genuinely love and that solve real-world problems.

Nine years ago, we had no idea what we would ultimately become. Even today, we only have a vague sense of the future. The development of AI is full of ups and downs, and we expect there will be more challenges and opportunities ahead.

Some of these changes are exciting, while others are full of challenges. The steady stream of research breakthroughs is exhilarating, and many former skeptics have become steadfast supporters. Of course, we've also witnessed some colleagues choose to leave and become our competitors. With the rapid expansion of our team, turnover is inevitable, and OpenAI's growth has been particularly astounding - the changes of the past two years are equivalent to what a normal company might see in a decade. As a fast-growing industry leader, we've also inevitably become the target of various criticisms and attacks, especially from competitive pressures.

Our vision has never changed, but our strategies have continuously adjusted and evolved over time. For example, we never initially thought we would need to build a product company - we thought we could just focus on doing excellent research. Similarly, we didn't anticipate the massive amount of funding required to support our work. Now, we need to construct many things that were unimaginable just a few years ago. And in the future, there will undoubtedly be more unforeseen challenges awaiting us.

We are proud of the achievements we have made in research and technology application, and we are committed to continuing to explore safety and alignment in depth. We still believe that the best way to make AI systems safe is to roll them out gradually and rhythmically, giving society time to adapt and co-evolve with the technology. Learning from real-world feedback and continuously improving the safety of the technology. We know that being a global leader in safety and alignment research is crucial, and this research needs to be guided by real-world feedback.