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If 2023 was the year artificial intelligence became a household topic of conversation, its in many ways because of Sam Altman, CEO of the artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI. Altman, who was named TIMEs 2023 CEO of the Year spoke candidly about his November oustingand reinstatementat OpenAI, how AI threatens to contribute to disinformation, and the rapidly advancing technologys future potential in a wide-ranging conversation with TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs as part of TIMEs A Year in TIME event on Tuesday.

Altman shared that his mid-November sudden removal from OpenAI proved a learning experienceboth for him and the company at large. We always said that some moment like this would come, said Altman. I didnt think it was going to come so soon, but I think we are stronger for having gone through it.

Read More: CEO of the Year 2023: Sam Altman

Altman insists that the experience ultimately made the company strongerand proved that OpenAIs success is a team effort. Its been extremely painful for me personally, but I just think its been great for OpenAI. Weve never been more unified, he said. As we get closer to artificial general intelligence, as the stakes increase here, the ability for the OpenAI team to operate in uncertainty and stressful times should be of interest to the world.

I think everybody involved in this, as we get closer and closer to super intelligence, gets more stressed and more anxious, he explained of how his firing came about. The lesson he came away with: We have to make changes. We always said that we didnt want AGI to be controlled by a small set of people, we want it to be democratized. And we clearly got that wrong. So I think if we don't improve our governance structure, if we dont improve the way we interact with the world, people shouldnt [trust OpenAI]. But were very motivated to improve that.

The technology has limitless potential, Altman saysI think AGI will be the most powerful technology humanity has yet inventedparticularly in democratizing access to information globally. If you think about the cost of intelligence and the equality of intelligence, the cost falling, the quality increasing by a lot, and what people can do with that, he said, it's a very different world. Its the world that sci-fi has promised us for a long timeand for the first time, I think we could start to see what thats gonna look like.

Still, like any other previous powerful technology, that will lead to incredible new things, he says, but there are going to be real downsides.

Read More: Read TIMEs Interview With OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

Altman admits that there are challenges that demand close attention. One particular concern to be wary of, with 2024 elections on the horizon, is how AI stands to influence democracies. Whereas election interference circulating on social media might look straightforward todaytroll farmsmake one great meme, and that spreads outAltman says that AI-fueled disinformation stands to become far more personalized and persuasive: A thing that Im more concerned about is what happens if an AI reads everything youve ever written online and then right at the exact moment, sends you one message customized for you that really changes the way you think about the world.

Despite the risks, Altman believes that, if deployment of AI is safe and placed responsibly in the hands of people, which he says is OpenAIs mission, the technology has the potential to create a path where the world gets much more abundant and much better every year.

I think 2023 was the year we started to see that, and in 2024, well see way more of it, and by the time the end of this decade rolls around, I think the world is going to be in an unbelievably better place, he said. Though he also noted: No one knows what happens next. I think the way technology goes, predictions are often wrong.

A Year in TIME was sponsored by American Family Insurance, The Macallan, and Smartsheet.

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Sam Altman on OpenAI and Artificial General Intelligence - TIME