# Current models may enable innovation sooner than expected Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/current-models-may-enable-innovation-sooner-than-expected/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy. - Speaker: [Sam Altman](https://realalpha.app/builders/sam-altman/) · Sam Altman is CEO of OpenAI. · Co-founded OpenAI and has led it since 2019, overseeing ChatGPT's launch; formerly president of Y Combinator. - Host: [Garry Tan](https://realalpha.app/people/garry-tan/) · President & CEO, Y Combinator · Co-founded Posterous and Initialized Capital, an early Coinbase backer. - Show: Lightcone - Episode: [How To Build The Future: Sam Altman](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/), Nov 8, 2024 - Moment: 40:33 to 44:17 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/current-models-may-enable-innovation-sooner-than-expected/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2433 ## Quote > “that demo and a few others have convinced me that you can get **a huge amount of innovation** just by using these current models in really creative ways” > — [Sam Altman](https://realalpha.app/builders/sam-altman/) at [40:58](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2458) · Lightcone ## Takeaways 1. Creative use of current models can unlock substantial innovation. 2. Altman expects AI agents to arrive faster than many expect. 3. His levels progress from chatbots to systems that run organizations. ## About this segment Sam Altman says creative uses of current models could make the jump to AI innovation faster than expected. He lays out five levels, from chatbots to AI-run organizations. From “How To Build The Future: Sam Altman”, Nov 8, 2024. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/) ## Transcript Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there. [40:37](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2437) of sounds like level four, which is, you know, the innovator stage. It's very funny you say that. I had been telling people for a while, I thought that the level two to level three jump was going to happen. But then the level three to level four jump was, level two to level three was going to happen quickly. And then the level three to level four jump was somehow going to be much harder and require some medium-sized or larger new ideas and that demo and a few others have convinced me that you can get a huge amount of innovation just by using these current models in really creative ways well yeah i mean it's uh what's interesting is basically camfer already built sort of the underlying software for CAD CAM. And then, you know, language is sort of the interface to the large language model, which then can use the software-like tool use. [41:34](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2494) And then if you combine that with the idea of CodeGen, that's kind of a scary, crazy idea, right? Like not only can the large language model code, but it can create tools for itself and then compose those tools similar to, you know, Chain of Thoughts with O1. Yeah, I think things are going to go a lot faster than people are appreciating right now. Yeah. Well, it's an exciting time to be alive, honestly. [41:59](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2519) You know, you mentioned earlier that thing about discover all of physics. I always wanted to be a physicist. I wasn't smart enough to be a good one. Had to, like, contribute in this other way. But the fact that somebody else, I really believe, is now going to go solve all the physics with this stuff, like, I'm so excited to be alive for that. let's get to level four so happy for whoever that person is yeah do you want to talk about level three four and five briefly yeah so we realized that agi had become this like badly overloaded word and people meant all kinds of different things and we tried to just say okay here's our best guess roughly of the order of things you have these level one systems which are these chatbots there'd be level two that would come which would be these these reasoners [42:40](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2560) we think we got there earlier this year with the 01 release. Three is agents' ability to go off and do these longer-term tasks, you know, maybe, like, multiple interactions with an environment, asking people for help when they need it, working together, all of that. And I think we're going to get there faster than people expect. Four is innovators, like, that's, like, a scientist, and you know that's ability to go explore like a not well understood phenomena over like a long period of time and understand what's just kind of go just figure it out and then and then level five this is the sort of slightly amorphous like do that but at the scale of the whole company or you know a whole organization or whatever that's going to be a pretty powerful thing yeah and it It feels kind of fractal, right? [43:33](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2613) Like even the things you had to do to get to two sort of rhyme with level five and that you have multiple agents that then self-correct that work together. I mean, that kind of sounds like an organization to me, just at like a very micro level. Do you think that we'll have, I mean, you famously talked about it. I think Jake talks about it. It's like you will have companies that make, you know, billions of dollars per year and have like less than 100 employees, maybe 50, maybe 20 employees. [44:00](https://realalpha.app/v/xXCBz_8hM9w/?t=2640) maybe one. It does seem like that. I don't know what to make of that other than it's a great time to be a startup founder. Yeah. But it does feel like that's happening to me. Yeah. You know, it's like one person plus 10,000 GPUs. Could happen.