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Openai CEO Sam Altman revealed that his company grew up 800 million active users weekly and experiences “incredible” growth rates at the Ted 2025 Conference in Vancouver last week.
“I have never seen growth in a company that I have been committed to or not,” Altman told Ted Head Chris Anderson on stage during her conversation. “Chatgpt’s growth – it is really fun. I feel very honored. But it is crazy to live through and our teams are exhausted and stressed.”
The interview that has completed the last day of Ted 2025: humanity reinterpretedpresented not only Openai’s exploding success, but also the increasing examination of the company, since its technology changes society at a pace that alerts some of its supporters.
“Our GPUS melts”: Openai fights in the unprecedented demand
Altman painted a picture of a company that struggled to keep up with his own success and found that Openais GPUs “melt” due to the popularity of its new image generation features. “I call people all day and ask them to give us their GPUs. We are so incredibly limited,” he said.
This exponential growth comes, since Openaai is reported to be considered Start of your own social network To compete with Elon Musks X according to the CNBC. Altman did not confirm or contest these reports during the TED interview.
The company recently closed a a 40 billion US dollars financing roundThe evaluation of 300 billion US dollars – the largest private technology financing in history – and this capital inflow will probably help to manage some of these infrastructure challenges.
From non-profit to $ 300 billion giant: Altman reacts to accusations of “Ring of Power”
During the 47-minute conversation, Anderson Altman repeatedly urged Opena’s transformation from a non-profit research laboratory to a profit-oriented company with an assessment of $ 300 billion. Anderson expressed concerns that critics, including Elon Musk, shared, who proposed that Altman was “corrupted by the power ring” and refers to “The Lord of the Rings”.
Altman defended the path of Openaai: “Our goal is to make Agi and distribute it to protect it for the broad advantage of mankind. I think we have done a lot in this direction in all reports. Obviously, our tactics have shifted over time. We did not think we had to build a company in this area.” We learned a lot about it.
When asked how he personally deals with the enormous force that he is now doing, Altman replied: “Shocking, just like before. I think you can get used to something step by step … you are the same person. I am sure I am not in all kinds of species, but I don’t feel any different.”
“Celebrate income”: Openai plans to pay artists whose styles are used by AI
One of the most specific political announcements from the interview was the confirmation from Altman that Openaai is working on a system to compensate for artists whose styles are emulated by AI.
“I think IP theft in ai-generated pictures. “If you say:” I want to generate art in the style of these seven people who have all agreed with it “, how they share, how much money goes to everyone?”
Openais image currently refuses to ask the generator to imitate the style of living artists without consent, but creates art in the style of movements, genres or studios. Altman suggested that a model could be available for sharing in Erlangen, although the details hardly remain.
Autonomous AI agent: The “most subsequently secure security challenge” Openai has confronted
The conversation was particularly tense when they discussed “Agent Ai“ – Autonomous systems that can take measures on behalf of a user on the Internet. Openai is new”operatorWith the tool, AI can carry out tasks such as booking restaurants and cause concerns about security and accountability.
Anderson challenged Altman: “A single person could leave these agents out there, and the agent could decide:” Well, to perform this function, I have to copy everywhere. “Are there any red lines that you have clearly drawn inside, where you know what the danger moments are?”
Altman referred to Openais “Preparation scaffolding”But only a few details about how the company would prevent the abuse of autonomous agents.
“Ki that you have access to your systems, your information, the opportunity to click on your computer. If you make a mistake, it is much higher inserts,” said Altman. “You will not use our agents if you don’t trust that you will not empty your bank account or delete your data.”
’14 Definitions of 10 researchers’: Inside Opena’s struggle to define agi
In an insightful moment, Altman admitted that there is no consensus even within Openaai about what artificial general intelligence (AGI) constitutes – the declared goal of the company.
“It’s like the joke, if you have 10 Openai researchers in one room and asked for Agi, you would receive 14 definitions,” said Altman.
He suggested that, instead of concentrating on a certain moment, we realize that “the models only become smarter and clever and smarter and in this long exponential.
Loosening of the guardrails: Openai’s new approach to content moderation
Altman also announced a significant change in the guidelines regarding the moderation of content and showed that Openai has loosened the restrictions of the image generation models.
“We gave users a lot more freedom of what we would traditionally harm as language,” he said. “I think part of the model orientation is to follow what the user of a model wants to do within the very wide limits of what society decides.”
This shift could signal a wider step to give users more control over AI outputs, which may be determined with Altman’s express preference for the permission of the hundreds of millions of users – and not “small elite cakes” – corresponding guardrails.
“One of the cool new things to AI is that our AI can speak to everyone on Earth, and we can learn the collective preliminary love for what everyone wants instead of having a number of people who are blessed by society to sit in a room and make these decisions,” said Altman.
“My child will never be smarter than AI”: Altman’s vision of a AI-operated future
The interview ended with Altman, who thinks about the world that his newborn son will inherit – one in which AI will surpass human intelligence.
“My child will never be smarter than AI. They will never grow up in a world in which products and services are not incredibly wise and incredibly capable,” he said. “It will be a world full of incredible material abundance … in which the change rate happens incredibly quickly and amazing new things.”
Anderson concluded with a sobering observation: “In the next few years they will have some of the greatest chances, the greatest moral challenges, the greatest decisions about every person in history.”
The law of the user-speaker law: How Openaai makes, profit and purpose navigated
Altman’s TED appearance takes place at a critical time for Openai and the wider AI industry. The company faces rising legal challenges, including Copyright lawsuits From authors and publishers, while at the same time the limits exceed what AI can do.
Recent progress like chatt Viral image generation feature And Videogenization Tool Sora has demonstrated functions that seemed impossible only months ago. At the same time, these tools triggered Debates about copyrightAuthenticity and the future of creative work.
Altman’s willingness to deal with difficult questions about security, ethics and the social effects of the AI shows an awareness of the operations involved. However, critics can determine that concrete answers to certain protective measures and guidelines have remained difficult to understand during the entire conversation.
The interview also revealed the competing tensions in the center of Openas Mission: to move quickly to advance AI technology and at the same time ensure security; Balancing the profit motifs with social benefits; Respect creative rights and democratize creative instruments; and navigation between elite specialist knowledge and public preference.
As Anderson found in his last comment, the decisions that Altman and his colleagues make in the coming years may have unprecedented effects on the future of humanity. It remains to be seen whether Openaai of his declared mission to ensure that “all humanity benefits from artificial general intelligence” can meet.
