The Hope

Three days ago, Sam Altman, who is the CEO of OpenAI, posted a question to the social platform X, where 4.9 million people follow him.

The question was: "what problem do you most hope AI will solve in the future? maybe we can help!"

The post received 14,912 replies. This is, by available measure, a large number of replies. The replies described specific problems. People mentioned cancer. They mentioned climate change. They mentioned loneliness and Alzheimer's disease. Several people mentioned the cost of insulin. One person described the experience of being placed on hold by a health insurance company, transferred to the wrong department, and then disconnected, and then having to start over from the beginning. The reply received an unknown number of likes. The problem remains unsolved. (The person has presumably hung up by now.)

Sam Altman is the person who decides what OpenAI builds. He has been deciding this since 2015. The company employs several thousand people who are also building the AI. The roadmap exists. The timeline exists. The decisions exist.

The survey received 14,912 responses.

The word "hope" in the question was his. He chose it. He also wrote the exclamation mark at the end of the second sentence. Both of these were choices.

Fourteen thousand nine hundred and twelve people described what they were hoping for. Sam Altman has been building the AI.

The replies are still arriving.