OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has revealed that the Microsoft-backed company has no plans to go public anytime soon. Speaking at a conference in Abu Dhabi, Altman cited concerns about making investor decisions that would be viewed strangely in the public market as a key reason, saying he didn’t want to be sued by Wall Street. Altman indicated that OpenAI has so far raised $10 billion from Microsoft at a valuation of almost $30 billion as it continues to invest in building computing capacity. The non-profit organization has a hybrid capped-profit company structure that enables it to attract external funds while benefiting the public good.
Altman and other high-profile scientists have warned against the risk posed by AI, particularly content-creating generative AI such as ChatGPT, saying it could lead to an extinction-level threat. However, OpenAI does not disclose data on its latest AI model, GPT 4. The EU is working on a set of laws to govern AI, including proposals that would require companies using tools such as ChatGPT to disclose copyrighted material used to train its systems.
Altman recently caused controversy after suggesting that OpenAI may leave the EU if it becomes too challenging to comply with planned laws on AI, drawing criticism from several lawmakers. Altman clarified his comments in Abu Dhabi, stating that the company expects to be able to comply with EU regulations and was excited to operate in Europe. He added that the jobs of the future would look very different, with a few years of growth in AI resulting in audio, video, text, computer programming and images, among others.
