5 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 26, 2026 05:10 PM IST<\/p>\n
The singularity, long viewed as a distant milestone in artificial intelligence, has already arrived, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.<\/p>\n
The ChatGPT-maker\u2019s frontman reiterated that humanity is already in the singularity, stating that the pace of AI development in the past decade has ushered in an era of superintelligence. Altman made these remarks in a recent appearance on a YouTube podcast episode titled \u2018How to start a startup\u2019 hosted by Ti Morse.<\/p>\n
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In response to a question about what drives top tech CEOs and how the way they currently operate differs from ten years ago, Altman replied, \u201cThe thing that drives me the most is\u2026this is the most interesting important thing I can imagine doing and we are now in the singularity, this is the moment \u2026.10 years ago this was like a far off dream at best. It seemed very improbable and now we\u2019re actually in the moment that we used to talk about at the lunch table in a very not serious way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI also think some of the alternative visions painted by other companies are quite terrifying. I\u2019m going to make sure that gets pushed against and is not what happens,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
According to Altman, AI has been advancing along an exponential curve and there has been no single defining moment that can be referred to as the tipping point. However, \u201cwe are somehow in another one of those decisive periods where the curve can go one way or another like it was when we started 10 years ago,\u201d the prominent AI figure added.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time that Altman has declared that humanity is currently in the singularity. In June 2025, he published a blog post titled \u2018The Gentle Singularity\u2019 where he argued that humanity has crossed the \u201cevent horizon\u201d of AI development, and that the process of building digital superintelligence has officially begun.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started [\u2026] Humanity is close to building digital superintelligence,\u201d he wrote. In the same blog post, Altman laid out specific timelines for AI progress. He said that by 2026,\u00a0 AI systems will be capable of generating genuinely novel scientific insights, and not just summarising existing research. He further predicted that robots performing real-world physical tasks will be commonplace by 2027.<\/p>\n
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The defining battle in AI today<\/p>\n
While Altman said significant questions around AI alignment, safety, and the future of jobs remain unresolved, he seemed to suggest that they are not the central challenge facing AI today.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026the fight of the current moment is are we going to head to a world of AI authoritarianism or liberty? Are we going to decide that because of the very real safety issues and economic issues that we want one single model to be the machine god or the company associated to do that or are we going to say what it\u2019s going to be,\u201d Altman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may be a little messy but every time that humanity has traded off its liberty for safety it\u2019s been a long-term net loss and so we are going to put this in the hands of people, we\u2019re going to empower them. We are going to let society express its ideas and use this technology in the way they want,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Altman also revealed on the same podcast that he became addicted to TikTok<\/a> while working on the company\u2019s AI video generation app, Sora. The app was seen as a potential AI-powered challenger to short-form video sharing platforms like TikTok and Instagram, but it was eventually shut down earlier this year as OpenAI deprioritised certain projects ahead of its IPO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were building the Sora app, I made myself get addicted to TikTok because I wanted to learn. I was like, you know, I had never really used it before. I mean, people would send me a TikTok or whatever, but I never got sucked into it. And I was like, I really don\u2019t want to build something that is going to have that kind of thing, absorb people\u2019s time,\u201d Altman said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then I thought I could control it. I was like, \u2018Oh, you know, it\u2019s actually kind of fun, but I only use it for like 10 minutes to wind down before bed and I\u2019m totally in control of it.\u2019 And then it was like an hour one night, and then some Saturday afternoon I was on the couch for like three hours,\u201d Altman added. \u201cAnd I was like, this is really not what I thought the iPhone was supposed to be about. Now I\u2019m really enjoying it in the moment, like a drug, but I can tell it\u2019s bad for me,\u201d he further said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 26, 2026 05:10 PM IST The singularity, long viewed as a distant milestone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[60369,60371,157,60372,60367,60365,60370,60363,60364,60368,60366],"class_list":["post-119383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-ai-authoritarianism-vs-liberty","tag-how-to-start-a-startup-podcast-sam-altman","tag-openai","tag-openai-ai-predictions","tag-openai-sora-app-shut-down","tag-openai-superintelligence","tag-sam-altman-digital-superintelligence","tag-sam-altman-singularity","tag-sam-altman-ti-morse-podcast","tag-sam-altman-tiktok-addiction","tag-the-gentle-singularity-sam-altman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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