The wheel, the plow. The compass, the telescope. The train, the car, the plane. The light bulb, the telephone, the internet, the smartphone. And so many others. All innovations created or harnessed by humans, for humans—used as tools to explore, discover, and create better lives for ourselves, our families and others. All progress has a starting point.
Artificial intelligence is the most powerful tool humans have ever invented. In just over two years, more than 300 million people around the world have used ChatGPT’s freely available intelligence to ideate, discover, and break through beyond what we’re currently capable of doing on our own; in January, one in seven American adults used ChatGPT.1 Most of our users—nearly eight in 10—are under the age of 35.2 California State University is making ChatGPT available to half a million students(opens in a new window). “The young people who are busy imagining and shaping the future are using AI to do it,” our Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch likes to say. “The only question is what they’ll use the tool to create, and what problems they’ll use it to solve.”
Economic research indicates that technologies usually take decades to diffuse across the world. More recently, digital platforms that have come before ChatGPT took between about 10 years (Netflix) and close to one year (Fortnite) to reach 100 million users. ChatGPT hit that milestone in two months, ushering in a new paradigm for the pace of technological progress.3
OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that as AI advances and becomes able to solve harder and harder problems, what’s called artificial general intelligence (AGI), it benefits everyone. As our CEO Sam Altman has written(opens in a new window), it won’t happen all at once, but we’ll soon be able to work with AI that helps us accomplish much more than we ever could without it. That starts with the tool getting into the hands of as many people as possible by being not just accessible but inspiring.
This is why we aired our first-ever television ad during the Super Bowl, because of how many people would be watching and sharing the moment with family and friends—the intersection of a national cultural moment, the big game, and the global start of what Sam has called the Intelligence Age(opens in a new window), as children everywhere become able to do things we can’t. Our goal was to pique people’s curiosity and help us all realize how AI can open up new possibilities for us, create more fulfillment in our lives, and make us more productive, just as all the tools that came before AI did for those who came before us. The ad depicts:
- Fire
- The wheel
- Horses
- Agriculture
- Travel by sea
- Music
- Steam locomotive
- Light bulb
- X-ray
- Airplane
- DNA
- Broadcast TV
- Space exploration
- Internet
- Computing
- ChatGPT
The ad itself is a signal of how AI can assist—not replace, but aid and enhance—a human-led creative effort. Our creative team used Sora, OpenAI’s video generation tool, as a super-fast visual brainstorming partner. They prompted it with their ideas and were able to visualize those ideas faster and ultimately bring their creative vision to life more efficiently while working on a compressed timeline. The team directed the process, refined the output, and added all the human touches that are what really make a powerful ad.
Hear from our creative team about the making of the ad(opens in a new window).
Making sure AGI benefits everyone also means making sure everyone shares in what the tool makes possible. The technological innovations, scientific discoveries and medical breakthroughs that will come as use of AGI scales can improve the lives of people everywhere. Already, our tools are being used to:
- accelerate scientific research by US National Laboratories;
- speed up development of life-saving medical treatments;
- help teachers(opens in a new window) create personalized lesson plans(opens in a new window), spend more time with students, and safely adopt AI in the classroom;
- protect US military personnel against unmanned drone attacks(opens in a new window);
- make state and local governments more efficient(opens in a new window);
- and of course, unlock new forms of creativity for artists and increase accessibility of artistic production.
These are also the kinds of innovations societies need to drive lasting economic growth. Eventually, entire new industries and fields of study will spring from the scaling of AGI.
AI is already helping hundreds of millions of users do things they previously couldn’t. Not far off is a future in which everyone’s lives can be better than anyone’s life is now.
