Bill Gates Talks with Sam Altman: Terrifying Thing of AI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated on a podcast by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that artificial intelligence (AI) will trigger the “fastest” technological revolution in human history, and humans may not be ready to adapt to this change at such a fast pace.
On Thursday local time, Gates released the latest episode of his podcast program Unconfuse Me. In this episode, Gates invited Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, currently the most popular AI company.

Recall event
Gates first talked about Sam Altman’s dismissal at the beginning of the program, which happened after the podcast was recorded. Gates said he was shocked by Sam Altman’s dismissal, but fortunately Sam Altman gained the support of almost all OpenAI employees and returned to the company in a short period of time.
Therefore, Gates first added a greeting to Sam Altman to see his current state. Gates called Sam Altman to inquire about his current situation. Sam Altman responded that it was really crazy, he was fine, it was a very exciting moment.
Gates asked again, how are the OpenAI employees doing. Sam Altman said that many people believe that the team has never felt so efficient, optimistic, and good before, which is a bit of comfort from this incident. In a sense, this is a moment of true growth for a company, which can drive the company to become better and prepare to face challenges.
The fastest technological revolution
Subsequently, Gates returned to the topic of podcasting and discussed AI with Sam Altman.
After discussing a series of benefits brought by AI, Gates expressed his concern that AI will “force us to adapt to this change at an unprecedented speed.”.
Sam Altman said, “This is the scary part. It’s not something we have to adapt to, nor is it that human adaptability is not strong. We’ve been going through these huge technological changes, and most of the work people do may change over several generations. After several generations of effort, we seem to have adapted well. We’ve seen this from the great technological revolutions of the past.”. However, every technological revolution has become faster, and AI will be the fastest so far, which I think may be a bit scary. I am concerned about how quickly society must adapt and the changes that will occur in the labor market.

At present, some people’s work has been affected by AI. Several companies that laid off employees in 2023 or 2024 have hinted or directly stated that they expect AI tools to improve efficiency, thereby reducing the number of employees in the company.
Sam Altman has also expressed other concerns about AI in the past. Last year, he told Satyan Gajwani, Vice Chairman of the Indian technology company Times Internet, “What makes me most insomnia is the assumption that we did some very bad things when we launched ChatGPT.”.
Sam Altman expressed concern at the time that OpenAI may have overlooked some difficulties and complexities in developing ChatGPT.