Altman plans D.C. push to "democratize" AI economic benefits
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arrives at the Allen & Company media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 8. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will use a swing through Washington this week to argue that AI is already making Americans more productive — and to promise to keep AI "democratic" by getting it in as many hands as possible, sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: Altman wants to continue driving debate over the effect AI will have on jobs. In an appearance Tuesday at a major Federal Reserve conference, Altman will offer what an adviser calls a "third path" between the bulls and the doomers.
Democratized vs. concentrated: A source familiar with Altman's thinking told us in an exclusive preview that his vision is "not all doomerism downside and not hand-waving away concerns — but focused on democratizing benefits (getting them into the hands of people to do stuff), not concentrating them in the hands of the few."
- Democratic vs. autocratic: It'll be the economic counterpart to a geopolitical case Altman made one year ago this week. In a Washington Post op-ed, he wrote that a U.S.-led "democratic vision for AI" must prevail over authoritarian governments that are "willing to spend enormous amounts of money to catch up and ultimately overtake us."
By the numbers: In data being reported here for the first time, OpenAI says ChatGPT users send more than 2.5 billion prompts each day globally. More than 330 million of those daily prompts are in the U.S.
- The free version of ChatGPT is used by the vast majority of the platform's more than 500 million weekly active users, OpenAI says.
Zoom in: On Tuesday, Altman will join Michelle Bowman, the Fed's new vice chair for supervision, for a fireside chat at a bank regulation conference before an audience that includes Fed officials and Wall Street executives.
- A new economic analysis by OpenAI chief economist Ronnie Chatterji will be released in conjunction with Altman's Fed appearance.
It's AI Week in D.C.: President Trump on Wednesday will keynote a "Winning the AI Race" summit, hosted by the All‑In Podcast and the Hill & Valley Forum.
- Also on Wednesday, the White House is expected to release its long-awaited 20-page AI Action Plan — which promises a hands-off, pro-growth approach, Axios tech policy reporters Maria Curi and Ashley Gold scooped last week.
"Over the course of the week," the source told us, "OpenAI will make the case that democratizing the economic benefits begins with putting these tools in the hands of people to do stuff so they have an opportunity to participate in the prosperity."
- "OpenAI sees AI fundamentally as a productivity-driving technology," the source continued. "The big question isn't if it will grow the economic pie — it's who gets how much of a slice. ... It's not about stopping disruption, but putting it into people's hands so they have the opportunity to benefit."
The big picture: Altman tweeted last week, in support of comments by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, that AI will allow people to "do a lot more than they could do before; ability and expectation will both go up," although "for sure jobs will be very different."
- Altman added that "maybe the jobs of the future will look like playing games to us today while still being very meaningful to those people of the future. (people of the past might say that about us.)"
The bottom line: Altman wrote in an essay last month that the AI industry is building "a brain for the world," and said that intelligence "too cheap to meter is well within grasp."
- Go deeper: Inside Trump's AI Action Plan.
