OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: “Every Country Is Going To Need To Have An AI Strategy”

OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was all praise for the UAE’s prowess in the artificial intelligence (AI) domain during his appearance at this year’s edition of GITEX Global, the world’s largest tech, AI, and startup event.  

Having joined the Dubai event virtually on Wednesday, October 15, Altman said that he and his team at OpenAI—the San Francisco-headquartered makers of the AI tool, ChatGPT—believe that “every country is going to need to have an AI strategy,” and that the leadership showcased by the UAE on this front has been “incredible.” 

“I hope that this will serve as an example for the rest of the world about what it looks like for a forward-thinking country to really embrace AI, and say, ‘This is going to be an important part of our future,’” Altman said. “And we [at OpenAI] are honored to be a partner for that.” 

Altman made these remarks as part of an on-stage conversation he had with Peng Xiao, Group CEO of G42, which, in 2023, had launched a partnership with OpenAI. OpenAI has since gone on to collaborate with the Abu Dhabi-headquartered tech conglomerate on a number of initiatives, including as a partner for Stargate UAE, the one-gigawatt compute cluster that is being built by G42 as part of the five-gigawatt UAE–US AI Campus in Abu Dhabi. 

From Xiao’s perspective, the strides that the UAE has made in AI stem from more than just investment or infrastructure. “I think [in terms of] how far the UAE has come, the single most important aspect of this progress is really in the mindset,” Xiao said at GITEX Global. “I still believe [that the] majority of the world has not fully comprehended yet [that] AI is not just another technology that you can wait to deploy at the time of your choosing. AI is a new lifestyle we all have to now embrace.” 

Altman followed that thought up with a reflection on the dynamics between technological innovation and human progress. “I think the common conception is that technology just drops on the side, and society has to react,” Altman said. “But the way this works in all of my experience is that it's a co-evolving system where technology is a little bit further, society changes, technology changes, society changes more. And there's a back and forth that wouldn't be represented by a single drop of technology, or a single adaptation of society, but it is this jointly evolving process. I think that's way more stable and way better for everyone, and it does represent how we try to run OpenAI.” 

But when considering the pace of change being driven by AI, Xiao noted that while the future can seem unclear and uncertain, real leadership in the domain would come from those willing to experiment with it, rather than those waiting for a playbook to emerge. “This is not something we can afford to sit and wait, and see what happens…” he said. “Either you choose to embrace it, or you will be just another user.”  

And while there continue to be prevailing fears about how AI could have adverse effects on our societies, Altman said that our collective capacity to adapt to change might just be getting underestimated. “I think if we could go back in time five years and show the people of 2020 what the AI systems for 2025 would look like, it would seem insane,” Altman said. “We just wouldn't believe it. And we would also say that if it were true and if these systems existed, then the world would have to be very crazy. And yet, here we are. We do have these Einsteinian-level systems in some small ways, and the world is just kind of continuing on. I think it's beautiful in many ways, but it is remarkable [that] we have such smart AI now, and we've all gotten so used to it.”