NEW DELHI: The current jobs are going to be disrupted as AI can do more and more of the things that drive our economy today, said Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI on Thursday. Altman, while speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, mentioned that it will be very hard to outwork a GPU in many ways. However, he also highlighted that society will continue to find new things to do.
“Technology always disrupts jobs. We always find new and better things to do. The people of 500 years ago would have thought that many of our current jobs look silly, like ways to entertain ourselves or create stress. And the people 500 years from now will hopefully look at us like impossibly rich people playing games, trying to find ways to pass their time, but we should all hope they feel much more fulfilled than we do today,” said Altman.
While talking about India, Altman said that India, the world’s largest democracy, is well positioned to lead in AI — not just to build it, but to shape it and decide what our future is going to look like. He added that more than 100 million people in India use ChatGPT every week, and more than a third of them are students. India is also the fastest-growing market for Codex, the company’s coding agent that helps people develop software faster and better.
“It’s also striking how much progress India has made in its mission to put AI to work for more people in more parts of the country. India’s leadership in sovereign AI, building on infrastructure, SLMs and much more, has been great to watch,” said Altman.
Altman also believes that only a couple of years away are early versions of true superintelligence, which would be capable of doing a better job as the CEO of a major company than any executive, certainly him, or doing better research than the best scientists.
“If we are right, by the end of 2028 more of the world’s intellectual capacity could reside inside data centers than outside them. This is an extraordinary statement to make, and of course we could be wrong, but I think it really bears serious consideration,” he added.
He also expressed his belief that democratization of AI is the only fair and safe path forward. According to him, democratization of AI is the best way to ensure that humanity flourishes.
“On the other hand, centralization of this technology in one company or country could lead to ruin,” he added.
He also pitched for a coordination committee for AI similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “In particular, the world may need something like the International Atomic Energy Agency for international coordination of AI, especially with the ability to respond rapidly to changing circumstances. The next few years will test global society. As this technology improves rapidly, we can choose either to empower people or to concentrate power,” added Altman.