Reflections on Sam Altman’s Recent Expectation-Setting on GPT-5 

I believe the model that will end up being popularly known as GPT-5 has finished training. That comes not just from the analysis in my January video but also Sam Altman’s response to a question I put to him, via an Insiders member.

We gathered that he is personally using the model they just finished training, and so his recent interview comments would be made with the initial impressions of what that model was like. So before my question, let’s look at his comments from the 20VC interview on the 15th April.

In that interview, everyone focused on him saying ‘we're going to steamroll [certain builders] with GPT-5’. But here was the context:

‘If you’re building something on GPT 4 that a reasonable observer would say if GPT-5 is as much better as GPT-4 over GPT-3 was - not because we don't like you, but just because we like have a mission - we're going to steamroll you …But there's a giant set of startups where you benefit from GPT-5 being way better and if you build those and AI progress keeps going the way that we think it's going to go I think for the most part you'll be really happy.’

Notice that even those building with the expectation that GPT-5 will be way better will be ‘for the most part’ happy. And here’s another comment from him that got less attention:

‘With GPT-4, people do use it to help them do science, just in extremely primitive and limited ways and with GPT-6 I think people will say ‘hey this is like helping me as a general purpose tool in all these ways’ and then with GPT-8 maybe people are like … ‘this can do some limited or maybe not so limited tasks for me.’’

Notice the implication. We’ve skipped GPT-5 and even GPT-6 isn’t yet ‘doing tasks’ but is ‘helping in general’. It feels like expectation-setting downwards, especially for those with the belief that GPT-5 will be AGI (here let’s define that as a substitute for hiring the median worker across most industries). 

Then we have Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic  - ‘Nothing truly insane happens in 2024’, and that most of the impressive stuff is ‘2026 onwards’.

But what’s this about a question from me? Well I was lucky enough to put a question to Sam Altman, via an Insiders Discord member, in a private 20 person Stanford AI chat that happened on Wednesday. A video snippet leaked on twitter but it was off-the-record, so we only got live-notes.

My question was: 'Do you see the techniques shared in the Let's Verify Step By Step paper as crucial to future GPTs?'

He said, from live-notes, 

• 'Yes, process level supervision is important, but not the most important (he didn’t say what was)

• In-context learning is a promising hint (he emphasizes in-context learning a few times throughout the session)

• Let’s Verify/Think Step By Step are the first step similar to GPT 1'

My reaction: Obviously he might be constrained in what he can say. But it’s a really interesting response. Check out my ‘Many Shot Magic’ Insiders video on how in-context learning could be a key metric for raw intelligence. And if let’s verify is GPT-1, I am genuinely curious to see what a GPT-5 of Let’s Verify is like.

Other notes from the event:

• There are plans for public/government audits this year

• The current economic models will break

• Capitalism will have to change, it’s the best economic system we’ve found so far, but not necessarily the best

Current OpenAI research directions:

• More efficient attention and 1 trillion context, which would open so many doors (personal AI, no finetuning)

• Big focus on adaptive compute

• On reasoning vs memorization he believes AI is doing reasoning right now (just poorly)

• ML theory does matter, we just might not catch up to capabilities

• OpenAI spends much more on inference than on training

• Self-verification/critique doesn’t work for current model, though they haven’t trained for it specifically; unclear if it is possible to train for, but believes it will be; we will figure it out in within the next few model versions

• On agents: believes that it is more important to focus on agent reasoning/introspection rather than scaling first

• GPT-6 might be a smart PhD student in all areas, but won’t dramatically change things within a few years

• 10th epoch on a calculus textbook has diminishing returns

• On using AI to help himself, he said can’t talk about the one he really uses since it’s not released yet

The last note was a big part of why I wrote this post - he is already using the next version, so his comments from mid-April onwards can be weighted a bit more heavily for significance. 

None of the comments so far though, from anyone at OpenAI, imply a step-change, a before-and-after game-changer.

I think GPT-5 will be jaw-dropping, let’s be clear, with a video avatar, much better benchmark scores, limited agency to complete basic tasks, 1m+ context, the ability to listen and speak in real-time in an even more life-like manner, and more. But not yet a substitute for the median worker in most industries (call-centers notwithstanding)

If I was being much more speculative than I should be, I would say that the US markets may be pricing in more economic disruption from GPT-5 than may occur, and that a moderate correction could be on the cards. Products can completely change the world (as AGI will), and still be overestimated in the very short run.

As always, let me know what you think. I've trawled pretty much every OpenAI employee comment from the last 4 weeks, and indeed chatted with a couple staff members. But I might have missed something! Have a wonderful day.