In a wide-ranging interview this week in Berlin, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made his boldest prediction yet: by 2030, artificial intelligence will likely surpass human intelligence in ways that could transform the global economy and society at large. Altman, known for his optimism about AI’s potential, told Die Welt that he would be “very surprised” if, by the end of this decade, “we don’t have extraordinarily capable models that do things that we ourselves cannot do.”
This statement, made on September 26, 2025, marks a significant escalation in the AI arms race rhetoric, just three years after ChatGPT’s release kicked off a global frenzy of innovation and investment. According to Fortune and Die Welt, Altman’s confidence is rooted in the rapid progress of AI models. “In many ways, GPT-5 is already smarter than me, at least, I think a lot of other people too,” he admitted. “GPT-5 is capable of doing incredible things that many people find very impressive. But it’s also not able to do a lot of things that humans could do easily. That will be the case for a while, as humans use these tools and apply their human insight, creativity, and ingenuity in really important ways.”
Despite these current limitations, Altman expects the pace of AI’s evolution to remain “extremely steep.” He forecasts that by as soon as 2026, AI models could achieve capabilities that would be “quite surprising,” if not outright astonishing, to today’s users. “If in 2026 we don’t see a similar rate of progress we’ve seen in 2024 and 2025, I’d also be surprised,” he said, underscoring his belief that the next few years will be pivotal for the technology.
One of the most striking implications of this progress, Altman believes, is the potential for AI to automate a significant portion of the world’s economic activity. “I can easily imagine a world where 30% to 40% of the tasks that happen in the economy today get done by AI in the not very distant future,” he told Die Welt. He’s careful to distinguish between jobs and tasks, noting that while many existing jobs will change or disappear, new roles will emerge—just as they have in every previous technological revolution. “There will be many jobs where a lot of what it means to do that job changes. Of course, there will be totally new jobs. And many existing jobs will disappear entirely and be replaced by these new jobs.”
For Altman, the real question is not if, but when, AI will reach the point where it can make scientific discoveries that humans simply cannot achieve on their own. “In another couple of years, it will become very plausible for AI to make, for example, scientific discoveries that humans cannot make on their own,” he said. “To me, that’ll start to feel like something we could properly call superintelligence.”
Yet, even as he predicts the dawn of superintelligence, Altman insists that certain human qualities will remain irreplaceable. “Something that is really unique is how much people care about other people and what they do, how much people want to interact with other people,” he reflected. “I think these qualities will be increasingly important in the world of AI. We’ll have an incredible tool at our disposal, but we still have to figure out what to do, what other people want, and what other people will find useful.”
Altman’s optimism is not universally shared. Some AI researchers and CEOs—like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei—believe AI will outpace humans “in almost everything” by 2027, while Elon Musk has predicted that AI will surpass the intelligence of the smartest human by next year. Meanwhile, critics such as Eliezer Yudkowsky warn that superintelligence could view humanity as ants, with catastrophic consequences. Altman, however, is more sanguine. “The one that has always been my favorite is my cofounder, Ilya Sutskever, who once said that he hoped that the way that an artificial general intelligence would treat humanity, or all AGIs would treat humanity, is like a loving parent,” he said. He cautioned, however, “Even if it has no intentionality, asking it to do something could have consequences we don’t understand. So, it is very important that we align it with human values.”
Ensuring that AI is safe, broadly beneficial, and widely distributed remains central to OpenAI’s mission, Altman emphasized. “We still have a nonprofit entity, and we always will. I hope that we will have the best-resourced and hopefully the most impactful nonprofit of all time. This is very important to our mission,” he said, responding to criticism that OpenAI has shifted too far toward commercial interests. “We’ve obviously made some mistakes, as we understand that with this new technology, we’ll make more in the future. But overall, I’m extremely proud of our team’s track record on figuring out how to make these services safe, broadly beneficial, and widely distributed.”
To support the coming wave of AI capabilities, OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank are pouring resources into infrastructure. In Abilene, Texas, the three are rapidly constructing an 800-acre data center complex as the flagship site for the Trump-approved Stargate infrastructure project. According to Fortune, this is just the beginning: OpenAI and Oracle have announced plans to build five additional data center complexes across the U.S. over the next few years. “This site is just a small fraction of what we’re building. All of that still won’t be enough to serve even the demand of ChatGPT,” Altman said during an event at the Texas site. He credits recent policy shifts under President Trump for making it easier to build such infrastructure, noting, “President Trump has done an amazing job of supporting this. A generally more pro-business and pro-tech climate has also been a welcome change.”
Looking ahead, OpenAI’s ambitions extend beyond software. Altman revealed that the company is developing a “family of devices” that could redefine how people interact with computers. While he offered few specifics or timelines, he hinted that these devices would leverage AI’s unique capabilities to simplify complex tasks. “One of the promises of AI is that you can say something complex that needs to happen over the course of a day, a month, or even a year. You can just trust that the computer will understand it, do it for you, and come back to you when it needs help,” he explained. “That would totally change what it feels like to use the computer instead of launching a bunch of apps and having notifications constantly come up.”
Despite all the excitement, Altman remains grounded in his belief that humans will remain at the center of the story. When asked what advice he would give his newborn son to prepare for the future, he emphasized adaptability and creativity. “The meta-skill of learning how to learn, of learning to adapt, learning to be resilient to a lot of change. I’m confident that people will still be the center of the story for each other,” he said.
As AI races toward superintelligence, the world watches with a mix of awe, anticipation, and anxiety. Altman’s vision is clear: a future where AI is not just a tool, but a partner—one that, if properly aligned with human values, could help humanity reach new heights.
