Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has become the face of a new generation of AI technologies that can generate images and messages in response to human instructions.
He was born in 1985 in the USA to American parents of Jewish background. Altman joined Stanford University to study computer science but dropped out without completing his bachelor's. He is characterized as a clever thinker who makes foresighted bets and even "a startup Yoda."
After dropping out at the tender age of 19, he cofounded an app called Loopt. The app helped users share their locations with friends and get coupons for nearby businesses.
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He has presented himself in interviews this year as someone aware of the threats posed by AI. He and his company have promised to proceed appropriately.
Others want Altman and OpenAI to proceed with caution. Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI before leaving the organization, signed a letter with dozens of other tech leaders, professors, and researchers calling for artificial intelligence labs like OpenAI to halt training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing "profound risks to society and humanity."
In 2019, Altman co-founded Tools For Humanity, a firm developing a global iris-based biometric system using a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin. Worldcoin aims to create a reliable mechanism to verify humans online to combat bots and phoney virtual identities made possible by artificial intelligence.
Using a cryptocurrency distribution system similar to UBI, Worldcoin seeks to incentivize users to join its network by scanning their iris with Worldcoin's orb-shaped iris scanner.
Altman has been a vegetarian since he was a child. He is gay and had a nine-year relationship with Loopt co-founder Nick Sivo, which ended shortly after the company was acquired in 2012. His partner in 2023 is Oliver Mulherin, an Australian software engineer. Altman resides in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco and has a weekend property in Napa, California.
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