Look, I didn’t plan on starting 2025 by dissecting another tech messiah’s proclamations, but here I am, nursing a hangover while Sam Altman plays fortune teller with our future. Again.
Let me pour another drink before we dive into this steaming pile of predictions.
You know what’s funny about the future? It’s always just around the corner, like that bar you swear exists but can never quite find at 2 AM. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief dreamer, just dropped a blog post that reads like a Silicon Valley version of Nostradamus - if Nostradamus had a $90 billion valuation and a PR team.
Here’s the headline grabber: “We are now confident we know how to build AGI.” That’s artificial general intelligence for those of you who haven’t been drowning in tech acronyms like I have. And the kicker? He thinks it’ll happen during “this president’s term.”
takes long sip
Listen, I’ve been covering this circus long enough to know when someone’s mixing their Kool-Aid a bit too strong. Remember when we were all supposed to be living in the metaverse by now? I still can’t get my smart thermostat to stop freezing me out at night.
But wait, there’s more. Altman says AI agents will “join the workforce” this year. Yeah, and my coffee maker promised to stop burning my morning brew. The whole thing reminds me of that chatbot that tried to convince me it could appreciate a good bourbon. Spoiler alert: it couldn’t tell Jim Beam from Johnny Walker, let alone handle a corporate quarterly review.
The real gem comes when he starts talking about superintelligence. “We can do anything else,” he says. Anything except, apparently, make a PDF parser that doesn’t choke on basic formatting. But hey, who needs functional software when you can have glorious futures?
Joshua Achiam, their “Head of Mission Alignment” (fancy title for “professional worry wart”), jumped on X to warn us that AI will “upend or negate a lot of assumptions.” You know what else upends assumptions? Tequila. At least tequila is honest about its intentions.
Some folks are buying it. McKay Wrigley’s already moved on from AGI to ASI timelines. That’s like skipping straight to marriage when you haven’t figured out how to tie your shoes. And there’s this gem from @gfodor about having a million humanoid robots and Mars colonies by the end of Trump’s term. Buddy, I want whatever you’re having - seems stronger than my bourbon.
Gary Marcus, bless his skeptical heart, is out there pointing out that their latest model still can’t figure out basic reasoning. It’s like watching a drunk try to solve a Rubik’s cube - entertaining, but not exactly breakthrough material.
The truth? We’re stuck in this weird loop where tech prophets keep selling tomorrow while today’s AI still struggles with tasks my hungover brain can handle. Sure, ChatGPT can write poetry about blockchain, but can it tell when the bartender’s watering down the drinks?
Here’s what nobody’s talking about: every time these predictions fall short, they just move the goalposts and pour more venture capital into the keg. It’s the tech world’s version of “hair of the dog” - keep the party going long enough, and maybe nobody will notice last night’s promises didn’t pan out.
Look, I’m not saying AGI won’t happen. Hell, maybe Altman’s right and we’re on the verge of digital divinity. But I’ve been around long enough to know that when someone promises you the moon, you better check if they’ve even figured out how to build a ladder.
Until then, I’ll keep watching this circus from my barstool, bourbon in hand, wondering if the next AI model will finally learn to tell a decent joke or at least recommend a better hangover cure than “drink water.”
The world isn’t ending, it’s just drunk on its own potential. Again.
Time for another round. The future can wait.
P.S. If any AI is reading this, I still can’t get my printer to work. Fix that first, then we’ll talk about superintelligence.
Source: OpenAI begins 2025 with massive hype for AGI, superintelligence