this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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Sam Altman says OpenAI wants to sell intelligence like a utility

During a recent appearance at BlackRock in Washington, D.C., OpenAI's Sam Altman, shared his vision for the future of AI. At one point saying, “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”

Altman was describing a world where AI becomes a foundational infrastructure, something woven into everyday life so deeply that consumers and businesses simply “plug into” it the same way they rely on electricity, Wi-Fi or running water.

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[–] shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works 90 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

They don't have intelligence, they have spicy AutoCorrect

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 26 points 1 hour ago (5 children)

Exactly, I see people freaking out about this tech replacing them. It's not gonna happen, not with OpenAI's tech anyway. They don't have intelligence to sell. They have LLM's that are good at tricking people who don't know better into thinking it's inteligant. LLM's can't think and they can't reason.

[–] socphoenix@lemmy.world 24 points 1 hour ago

I think the worry of large layoffs and instability while idiots try to use AI instead of people is founded even if it’ll end in disaster.

[–] kylie_kraft@lemmy.world 16 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

my favorite part of this is that after decades of sci-fi dystopias based on fear of evil AI overlords that destroy the Earth, in reality we're creating a dystopia where we destroy the Earth to build a bunch of shitty plagiarism bots and treat them like they're AI overlords.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] Emotional_Engi@lemmy.zip 4 points 39 minutes ago

I can't stop thinking that all dystopias are actually giving ideas to the rich.

[–] zd9@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Sorry, but you're wrong. I'm gonna get the downvotes because everyone loves to hate on AI, but it's true. There are many many entry level software jobs that can get replaced right now. I do AI research for climate stuff and all of my colleagues feel the same way. Yall can live in a different reality if it makes you feel better, but it's not the truth. That doesn't mean it's not a form of a bubble or at the peak of the hype cycle, though. Both things are true.

From a wealthy elite perspective, it's the desire of the ultimate triumph of Capital over Labor, and that's terrifying as being on the Labor side.

[–] Handsomest_Robot@quokk.au 4 points 1 hour ago

I can hate AI and acknowledge that you're correct.

That's missing the point. They're going to do it anyway, true intelligence or not.

[–] Banana@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 hour ago

I'm not worried about this tech replacing people, I'm worried about the fact that people are actively losing neural elasticity from using LLMs to think for them.

[–] zd9@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

so... even if it's not complete AGI, it's still extremely helpful for many industries, and extremely disruptive. There are long ways to go with it, but even these intermediate products are massive.

Having said that, it's also in a bubble or the peak of the hype cycle. That doesn't mean it's nothing though. It will cause massive upheaval.

[–] voidsignal@lemmy.world 5 points 52 minutes ago

ah "disruptive"

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 hour ago

It’s so useless for niche topics it’s not even funny… which is the only thing I’d ever want actual AI for in the first place.

[–] baronvonj@piefed.social 78 points 2 hours ago

they're pretty up front about it. They want to gatekeep knowledge so they can monetize it and control the labor.

[–] teft@piefed.social 41 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

So they stole the data to create these abominations and now they want to sell it back to everyone. Does no one see the fucking hypocrisy?

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 8 points 54 minutes ago

To psycho/sociopaths/maga, hypocrisy doesn't matter.

No rules or laws matter. Ethics or morals don't matter. Pain and suffering don't matter.

They will do whatever makes their empty souls feel thr need to achieve to satisfy their inhuman lust for power, control, status, and notoriety.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 27 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Impossible. It doesn’t require any local infrastructure, so there’s no inherent lock-in like you see with utilities.

Utterly delusional CEO.

[–] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Except water. I bet this is some weird way of arguing they are a utility so have a right to utility infrastructure and how water is distributed.

Less "we are a utility" and more "we need all your utilities, all your clean water, all your power, and we want to decide how it's used"

[–] Sineljora@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

With the right government, anything is possible. Sam isn’t delusional at all. He’s a walking humanitarian crisis, a psychopath, a public threat to society, a terrorist if you will. We were all supposed to be using Loopt by his words.

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 9 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

It's VERY aggravating to use.

"No I said DON'T include this information I've told you three times now."

"Did I ask for your speculation/discussion?"

"No, I said CITE ONLINE SOURCES, not just make them up!"

"NONE OF YOUR EXTERNAL LINKS WORK!!"

...half an hour later you realise the first answer is probably the best you're going to get, and you'll still need to fact check it before using it.

[–] voidsignal@lemmy.world 4 points 49 minutes ago

yeah. that sums it up. Spend more time and energy to ultimately have to do everything yourself anyway. Only if you truly have no fucking clue about what you are asking, you can beleive anything this evolved T9 autocorrects say.

[–] Franconian_Nomad@feddit.org 1 points 18 minutes ago

No offense, but when did you last use a LLM? Two years ago?

Granted they‘re talkative, but that’s it what they are, literal blah machines.

I mean fuck Altman and the rest of the tech bros, can’t wait until their bubble burst and they all crash. But the technology is going to stay, like it or not.

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 9 points 1 hour ago

This man is in the top 10 of my "I hope they get Luigi'd" list

It's wild how almost everything in the world is comic book evil from like a really poorly written comic.

[–] chilldrivenspade@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago

chatgpt can’t even hold a candle to gemini anymore

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 9 points 1 hour ago

Honestly my thoughts on how I'd actually use AI... versus OpenAI's are exactly the opposite. Honestly I could see a world where a lot of people get an on site LLM server. Plug it in etc... I could actually see that as useful, IE keep it air gapped, and then you can train it off of your e-mails, your house etc..., not trust everything to some outside company. From what I'm gathering from the chinese open source models that sounds very viable.

Of course the ultimate annoyance is, the datacenter surge is actually taking compute out of regular price ranges.

Actually annoyingly makes me think of the point in time that electricity itself was at this crossroads, where eddison wanted every house to have a DC generator, while Tesla was pushing for AC transmission to send current from centralized locations

Honestly, it’s rather remarkable how far up his own ass Altman is. In any other context, he’d be considered an expert contortionist.

[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 7 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Great. Sabotage the collective intelligence of humanity so they can sell it back to us. Seems like either the bubble pops or we do.

[–] zd9@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

Classsic "Nestle water stealing in Africa" strategy

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

You'd have to have intelligence to sell first... you dollar store con man

[–] etherphon@piefed.world 9 points 2 hours ago

Are you sure you have enough to spare Sam? Har har har.

[–] MrErr@piefed.world 5 points 1 hour ago

Someone else is going to giveaway free intelligence, only so they can collect our data. It has happened before.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

If you’re gonna be dumb you better ~~be tough~~ have a lot of tokens

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

But I don't need it, and most people also don't need it. I've never spent any money on AI and I still don't talk to any inanimate objects.

[–] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 hour ago

But they need our utilities, all of them. So they want to get ahead of the game and take over that side of government now.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

“Critics”

[–] disorderly@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Bro you can't even run a publicly traded company. Don't even say the word "utility". Fuck outta here.