Did you know that the creator of ChatGPT was born on the same day as Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb? Both also share the conviction that nothing should stop technological progress, but also fear that their invention will cause the end of the world and fight fiercely to prevent it. Find out who Sam Altman really is, the man behind the AI revolution !
“Technology happens because it is possible”. This sentence was pronounced by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb whose story is currently being staged in the cinema by Christopher Nolan.
It was also taken over in 2019 by Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI and creator of the ChatGPT AI, which has been upsetting the whole world for several months. Ironically, both men were also born on April 22.
A date of birth that they also share with Lenin, the famous Russian revolutionary leader. Suffice to say that people born on this day seem destined to change the world, and often in a brutal way...
As Robert Oppenheimer's biopic breaks box office records and ChatGPT transforms our reality, we invite you to discover who Sam Altman really is and what his points are in common with the "destroyer of worlds"..
Passionate about technology from an early age
Born on April 22, 1985 in Chicago, Sam Altman grew up in St Louis, Missouri. He showed a keen interest in technology from an early age, learning to code on his own at just 8 years old.
Already at the time, his vocation seemed clear. From the age of 12, he spent long hours dismantling and reassembling Macintosh computers. His own parents were impressed with his resourcefulness.
As a teenager, he also started developing his own software and even created a website that caught the attention of prominent industry professionals. This is what led him to think about starting his own business..
A gay teenager against the conservative Midwest
At 16, he confessed his homosexuality to his parents. However, he was confronted at the time with the rather closed mentality of the Midwest. Thanks to his computer, he flourishes through the AOL chat rooms on the internet.
When a Christian group boycotts an assembly dedicated to homosexuality in its private school John Burroughs School, it is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
He decides to come out of the closet in front of all his comrades. According to Madelyn Gray, her college counselor, “What Sam did that day changed the whole school. It was like someone had opened a big box full of all kinds of children and let them out into the world.”
It was the young man's first time campaigning for social justice. Even today, he is a fervent defender of minorities and that is why his AI ChatGPT refuses any discrimination.
Loopt : a GPS app to find friends in real time
Like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg who dropped out of Harvard, Sam began studying at Stanford and threw in the towel after just two years. He then decided to go straight into entrepreneurship.
In 2005, he founded Loopt : a startup dedicated to a geolocation system to allow users to share their location with their friends in real time.
This is a feature that most GPS apps like Google Maps offer today, but it was a totally innovative idea at the time that quickly aroused great interest.
On a road trip across the United States with a friend, Altman used Loopt throughout the trip. This is what ended up convincing investors of the massive potential of this software..
The Y Combinator Accelerator Chair
Thanks to Loopt's success, young Sam reaches the next level. In 2011, his startup was one of the first eight companies supported by the now famous Y Combinator accelerator.
Each receives $6,000 in support. For the record, the Reddit forum was also part of this first wave.
From then on, Altman joined a prestigious network of entrepreneurs and his rise did not stop there. In 2014, at the age of 28, he was chosen by founder Paul Graham to become president of the program.
He then brings his personal touch by encouraging the beneficiaries to think big and to persevere despite the obstacles. According to Mark Andreessen, "With Sam, YC's level of ambition increased 10 times".
Anecdotally, after becoming president of the YC Combinator, Altman wanted to support more science startups. Desiring to create his own nuclear energy company, he invested in fission and fusion startups..
In the fall of 2014, he gave a series of master classes at Stanford called “How to start a startup”. His mentorship and advice have helped many entrepreneurs to succeed in turn..
Hydrazine Capital : the beginning of an investment empire
However, he eventually gave way to Y Combinator. He created the investment fund Hydrazine Capital and raised $21 million from billionaire Peter Thiel.
More than 75% of the sum is invested in the Y Combinator companies, and Hydrazine notably leads Reddit's Series B fundraising.
During an interview with The New Yorker, Altman explained that he prefers to invest in "messy, sometimes ruined" companies. For good reason, they will often be largely undervalued because of their default and can very quickly increase in value.
He will quickly become a highly respected venture capitalist. He takes a large number of promising startups under his wing, and his ability to spot innovative ideas is praised by everyone who crosses his path.
According to the testimony of an anonymous entrepreneur, "when I had the opportunity to speak to Sam, I was nervous, but he listened to me with genuine attention and gave me advice that changed the trajectory of my start-up. His kindness and support have been invaluable to me.”
Committed to social issues, he is also recognized for having made significant donations to charities and initiatives aimed at solving global problems. This includes equitable access to education and technology.
OpenAI, ChatGPT and the AI revolution
Fascinated by artificial intelligence, Sam Altman founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Elon Musk with the support of giants like Amazon and Microsoft.
A total of one billion dollars is injected into this non-profit organization project entirely dedicated to the research and development of AI for the benefit of humanity.
In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT and immediately caused a global revolution. Now, Sam Altman is seen as the figurehead of a big upheaval in generative AI and many see him as the new Bill Gates.
Under his leadership, the organization eventually became very lucrative and is now capitalized at $29 billion thanks to the success of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools like the DALL-E image generator.
While he remains rather tight-lipped about his fortune, contenting himself with saying that he has "enough money", Atlman once told two YC founders that he likes racing cars. He owns at least five, including two McLarens and an old Tesla. He also likes to rent planes to fly over California.
Within weeks, ChatGPT attracted millions of users and established itself as the fastest growing app ever ahead of TikTok. In order to exploit this technology for its Bing search engine, Microsoft has invested an additional 10 billion dollars.
Despite many public and government fears, Sam Altman promotes responsible and ethical AI, and works tirelessly to ensure that this technology has a positive impact for as many people as possible.. but is it really possible ?
From Oppenheimer to OpenAI : the human face of technological fatality
Leaders around the world are looking for an effective way to regulate this technology destined to change the world, in the face of threats of a great replacement of human labor and a massive spread of false information.
Facing the United States Senate, Sam Altman confessed that his greatest fear is that the AI industry is “causing serious damage to the world”. A general AI, endowed with consciousness and intelligence superior to humans, could indeed decide to get rid of humans.
It should be noted that Altman himself is a survivalist, and is preparing in the event of nuclear war or a pandemic caused by a “synthetic lethal virus”.
His possessions include weapons, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks, and a huge isolated piece of land. In the event of an apocalypse, and even if it is his own invention that causes it, his chances of survival are probably greater than yours..
Nonetheless, he says government regulation is “essential to mitigating risk.” In a few weeks, he notably met the vice-president of the United States Kamala Harris, the French president Emmanuel Macron, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
In order to prevent AI from putting billions of human beings out of work and plunging them into misery, he also promotes the establishment of a universal income. Also, to help distinguish real people from DeepFakes, he launched the startup WorldCoin aimed at scanning the eyes of all humans.
However, like Prometheus who stole the secret of fire from the gods, Sam Altman and Oppenheimer have opened a door that can no longer be closed. They have lost control of their own creation.
Like Oppenheimer, Sam Altman devoted his life to science and technological evolution, but may well end up haunted by the regrets and the dread of having precipitated humanity towards its own destruction..
In the same way as nuclear power, artificial intelligence is an invention that can both improve our lives or, on the contrary, cause our extinction. The choices of humanity as a whole will determine which of these two paths it takes.
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