OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blog post on Monday, musing about the history and future direction of the company. In it, he confidently states that his company knows “how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it,” and that it is now working toward a “glorious future” of artificial super-intelligence. Altman also revealed Monday that OpenAI’s $200-per-month Pro subscription is somehow losing the company money.
“We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future,” Altman wrote Monday. “Superintelligent tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own, and in turn massively increase abundance and prosperity.”
OpenAI has previously defined such artificial general intelligence’s (AGIs) as “AI systems that are generally smarter than humans.” However, that definition has wavered in recent weeks with Altman predicting, “we will hit AGI sooner than most people in the world think and it will matter much less.”
Its pursuit of AGI may be moot if OpenAI doesn’t find a way to keep its lights on. Altman revealed via an X post Monday that OpenAI’s top-of-the-line, unlimited access $200-per-month Pro subscription is turning the opposite of a profit because “people use it more than we expected.”
“I personally chose the price and thought we would make some money,” Altman wrote. He did not provide additional explanation as to his reasoning for choosing that price point or why he was involved in making that decision. OpenAI was expected to lose roughly $5 billion at the close of 2024 despite nearly $4 billion in sales.
insane thing: we are currently losing money on openai pro subscriptions!
people use it much more than we expected.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 6, 2025
Further, Altman did not expound on the company’s financial status in his blog post but did revisit the fallout from his (albeit temporary) firing in November 2023. “The whole event was, in my opinion, a big failure of governance by well-meaning people, myself included. Looking back, I certainly wish I had done things differently, and I’d like to believe I’m a better, more thoughtful leader today than I was a year ago,” Altman wrote. “Good governance requires a lot of trust and credibility. I appreciate the way so many people worked together to build a stronger system of governance for OpenAI that enables us to pursue our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits all of humanity.”
Since returning to his role overseeing OpenAI, Altman has solidified his power base within the company, wrestled control from its board, and helped steer it toward a far more lucrative, for-profit model, replacing its original nonprofit structure and development protections.
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