AI’s Evolution Under Altman: From Operating System to World-Changing Agent

In a recent appearance at the Sequoia Capital AI Ascent, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared compelling insights about artificial intelligence’s trajectory and its impact on work, innovation, and society at large. Altman’s observations reveal a technology rapidly becoming embedded in our daily lives in ways that differ dramatically across generations.

Young people, according to Altman, are approaching AI systems like ChatGPT fundamentally differently than their older counterparts. “They really do use it like an operating system,” Altman noted during the event. “They have like complex ways to set it up to connect it to like a bunch of files and they have like fairly complex prompts memorized in their head.”

This represents a generational divide in AI usage patterns. As Altman explained, “Older people use ChatGPT as a Google replacement, maybe people in their 20s and 30s use it as like a life advisor something, and then like people in college use it as an operating system.” This observation mirrors previous technological shifts, where younger generations adapt more naturally to emerging technologies.

Within OpenAI itself, AI has become integral to the company’s development process. When asked about internal usage, Altman revealed, “It writes a lot of our code,” though he dismissed simplistic metrics like lines of code as “an insane way” to measure impact. Instead, he emphasized quality: “It’s writing meaningful code… writing the parts that actually matter.”

Coding capabilities aren’t just another application but central to OpenAI’s future. “Coding I think will be how these models… right now if you ask ChatGPT a response you get text back, maybe you get an image. You would like to get a whole program back,” Altman explained. “Writing code I think will be very central to how you actuate the world and call a bunch of APIs or whatever.”

Looking ahead to the next 12 months, Altman outlined a progressive vision for AI development. “I kind of think 2025 will be a year of sort of agents doing work, coding in particular,” he predicted. Beyond that, he envisions 2026 as a year where “AI [is] discovering new stuff and maybe we have AIs make some very large scientific discoveries,” followed by 2027 when robots transition “from a curiosity to like a serious economic creator of value.”

The rapid pace of AI advancement is creating winners and losers in the corporate landscape. Altman observes that smaller companies are “clearly just beating the crap out of larger ones when it comes to innovation,” a pattern he sees as consistent with previous technological revolutions. Large organizations hampered by annual security councils and rigid processes struggle to adapt to technology that evolves “a lot every quarter or two.”

This organizational inertia mirrors the generational divide in individual AI usage. “The difference is unbelievable,” Altman said, comparing how 20-year-olds and 35-year-olds interact with ChatGPT. “The sort of like generational divide on AI tools right now is crazy.”

On navigating adversity, Altman offered a nuanced perspective that extends beyond immediate crisis management. While acknowledging that challenges grow more complex over time, he noted that “the emotional toll gets easier as you kind of go through more bad things.” Importantly, he highlighted an underappreciated aspect of resilience: not just handling the crisis itself, but managing “the fallout after” – dealing with “day 60 as you’re just trying to like rebuild.”

As AI continues its rapid evolution, Altman’s insights suggest we’re witnessing not just technological advancement but a fundamental reshaping of how different generations work, create, and solve problems.

Source: Wes Roth YouTube Channel