Sam Altman Explains Why It Is 'Critical' That US AI Stack Is Adopted By The International Community

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During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about increasing adoption of US AI products and infrastructure.

Transcript

00:00Senator Kemp. Yeah, thank you. Mr. Smith, I think I'd like to start with you because I thought

00:09your point about what exactly is the race, right? You know, we keep talking about the race and you

00:15framed it in a particular way saying that it's about adoption in the rest of the world, the 78%.

00:20I guess I just wanted to ask you to tease that out some more in terms of understanding what role

00:27we could play in Congress, in government, in terms of trying to accelerate and champion that AI

00:34adoption internationally. I think there's two things. The first is it just shines a light on

00:40the importance of getting it right for export controls, which is the AI diffusion rule that's

00:46being discussed right now. And I think what it shows is we want to have, I believe, as a country,

00:52the kinds of national security controls that ensure that, say, chips don't get diverted to

00:58China or get accessed by the wrong users, say, in China for the wrong reasons. And that is something

01:06that people have drafted in the Department of Commerce. At the same time, we need, I believe,

01:15to, say, get rid of the quantitative caps that were created for all of these tier two countries

01:20because what they did was send a message to 120 nations that they couldn't necessarily count on

01:28us to provide the AI they want and need. And just think about it. I mean, if this is a critical part

01:35of your country's infrastructure, how can you make a bet on suppliers if you're not confident that

01:41they'll be able to fulfill your needs? So I think you in Congress and the Senate can help the White House

01:48and the Department of Commerce get this right. Mr. Altman, I wanted your thoughts on this. Is that

01:53the right framing of the race? Is it about the adoption internationally in terms of other countries?

01:58I guess I'm trying to think through it. Like, part of what you just said in your previous response

02:02was that we want other nations to be able to build upon the U.S. AI stack. Is that the right framework?

02:08Is that what we're thinking about? Or is it more about the consumer? Is it more about getting the rest of

02:13the world and the 78 percent of the population to adopt AI applications that are U.S.? Or is it

02:19interrelated? I think it's heavily interrelated. To me, the stack is, you know, from the chips at the

02:23bottom to the applications on the top. And we want the whole world on the U.S. stack. We want them to

02:28use U.S. chips. We want them to use services like ChatGPT. But does having other nations building on

02:34the infrastructure component of the stack, does that more or less then guarantee or at least

02:42have a high likelihood that then the consumers in that country will be using our products and

02:46applications? Is that the sort of theory of the case? It probably does make it marginally more likely,

02:52but I also think that if someone's using a stack that we don't trust to train models, like who knows

03:00what it's going to do? Who knows what sort of backdoors would be possible? Who knows what sort of,

03:03you know, data corruption issues could be possible? I think the AI stack is increasingly going to be

03:12a jointly designed system from the chip all the way up to the end consumer product and, you know,

03:17lots of stuff in between. I think separating that won't work that well in practice and we shouldn't

03:24want to. Like, again, I think this point, this is a very critical point that the leverage and the power

03:30the U.S. gets from having iPhones be the mobile device people most want and, you know, Google being

03:37the search engine that people most want around the world is huge. We talk maybe less about how much

03:43people want to use chips and other infrastructure developed here, but I think it's no less important

03:49and we should aim to have the entire U.S. stack be adopted by as much of the world as possible.

03:55Yeah. I mean, when we are looking at, you know, you're talking about our investment into models

03:59and building of that nature, how are we doing in terms of development of the applications,

04:05the AI tools and applications, though, that are trying to embed in people's lives? You know,

04:09not necessarily just the overarching models, but do you feel like we're putting the level of intensity

04:15that we need to in terms of that type of development?

04:17ChatGPT is the most adopted AI service in the world, not just in the United States, but in the world,

04:23by a quite significant margin. We're very proud that people like it and we need to keep pushing on that.

04:30I think it's important for all the reasons you just discussed. There are many other U.S. companies

04:34building incredible products and services that are also getting globally adopted. This is what the U.S. does best.

04:40You know, Dr. Su, I want to just ask one last point to you. You know, over and over again,

04:43each of you is talking about talent as this incredible power, but also it could be a bottleneck

04:49to us. How are we doing when it comes to the development of talent in this country? If you were

04:54to give us a grade, what would you grade us at in terms of our development right now?

05:01Thank you, Senator, for the question. Look, I think the smartest engineers are in the United States.

05:05We have a great base of talent, but what I will say is we need more. We need more hardware developers,

05:12software developers, application developers. How wide is that delta? If we're talking about this

05:15as a race, as you did, you know, is that a space where we have a larger amount of delta or is that

05:24a place where it's closing rapidly, too? Well, I think we do have a very talented, you know,

05:30overall talent base, but we also have the desire to have the best, and that includes not only,

05:36you know, U.S. nationals, but also having the best, you know, international students.

05:41Drawing the talent from the world. That's right. I think high-skilled immigration is one of those

05:45areas where we want the best people in the world to be doing their work in the United States.

05:51And, Senator, if I can just add something to your previous point about the cycle and what race

05:58we're trying to win. You know, technology is one of those things where you can have a very vicious

06:03positive cycle. So, in other words, when we lead and more people adopt, that means more developers

06:10that make our technology better, that increases our lead. So, that's what we want, is to have

06:15our leadership just increase over time.

06:17Senator.

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