Sam Altman explained OpenAI's need for investment and responded to criticism of Sora 2

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explained in a post on X that the company's main goal is to create AGI and use artificial intelligence for scientific discovery, and launching commercial products and features is a way to simultaneously demonstrate progress and attract resources for large-scale research.

Altman responded to user criticism of his claims that it would take $7 trillion in investment and 10 gigawatts of energy to create an AI that could help treat cancer. At the same time, OpenAI is preparing a new app for viewing generated videos to compete with TikTok and is launching a new video generation model, Sora 2.

"We do mostly need the capital for build AI that can do science, and for sure we are focused on AGI with almost all of our research effort. It is also nice to show people cool new tech/products along the way, make them smile, and hopefully make some money given all that compute need," Altman wrote.

He also recalled that in 2022, the launch of ChatGPT also caused skepticism: users asked why this product was needed and where was AGI.

"Reality is nuanced when it comes to optimal trajectories for a company," Altman added.

OpenAI has been balancing its long-term ambitions to create AGI with practical steps to monetize its products. At the same time, the company is negotiating with investors and governments to finance large-scale projects that require powerful data centers and enormous computing resources. By the way, OpenAI recently became the most expensive startup in the world, reaching a capitalization of $500 billion.