Why AI's biggest champions are feeling "useless" and "sad" over the boom
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Happy but sad is the new mood among tech executives building AI, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Why it matters: The tech executives building and promoting AI are now confronting its downsides firsthand, including the possibility that the technology could diminish their own roles.
State of play: For years, there have been predictions of a white-collar job bloodbath thanks to AI. More recently, AI startups are raising billions to develop "brains" for robots that could complete blue-collar and industrial jobs, too.
- AI agents are also expected to help shape agendas, coach senior leaders and reshape business calls with new thinking, insiders say.
- But tech leaders may have lost the joy.
What they're saying: On Monday, Altman said on X he was recently hit with sadness while building an app with Codex, a coding agent for ChatGPT.
- Altman said the process "was very fun." But when he asked Codex to share new ideas for the app, "at least a couple of them were better than I was thinking of."
- "I felt a little useless and it was sad," Altman wrote.
- "I am sure we will figure out much better and more interesting ways to spend our time, and amazing new ways to be useful to each other, but I am feeling nostalgic for the present," he wrote.
Zoom in: The same day, Aditya Agarwal, co-founder of the health app Bevel, shared a similar feeling after coding with Claude, saying it was "very clear that we will never ever write code by hand again. It doesn't make any sense to do so."
- "It's a weird time. I am filled with wonder and also a profound sadness," he wrote on X.
- "Something I was very good at is now free and abundant. I am happy ... but disoriented," he added.
The big picture: This isn't just emotion — AI leaders are warning policymakers about the risks they see ahead.
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called on Congress to act faster as AI capabilities accelerate and "test who we are as a species."
Reality check: CEOs and tech executives likely have gigantic safety nets to fall back on if AI takes their jobs. And it's not like CEOs will be eliminated overnight because a bot can build a spreadsheet.
- But the role of the CEO might change, experts said.
- "More and more people are going to be … chief question officers. Not chief executive officers," said Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford Digital Economy Lab director, at an Axios Davos event in January.
- "People who define the question for a fleet of agents who then carry them out become the CQO," Brynjolfsson added.
The bottom line: The AI revolution is hitting closer to home than its creators expected.
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