Altman has an unsurprisingly optimistic view of human nature that will respond to the rise of AI, saying he doesn’t think people will “play video games all day long” while computers do their jobs.

“If you give people better tools, they just operate at a higher level,” Altman told a crowd at the Startup Network event last Friday.

“Expectations for all of us will go up, but our ability to do things will go up and we will turn our jobs into who knows what – some jobs will disappear completely, and of course there will be totally new ones as well.

“But it’s very hard for me to imagine a world without human doctors, even though a doctor’s day-to-day life is a very different experience.”

Since the unprecedented rise of his company’s ChatGPT product, Altman has been traveling the world to talk about the power of AI, its impact on society, how he wants to see it regulated, and to spread his belief that a super intelligent AI system can destroy humanity.

The Australian leg of this tour focused heavily on what AI could mean for the future of work, with Altman saying AI will usher in a time where things are changing much faster than ever before.

“We’ve lived in a fairly static world for the past few decades,” he said. “I think that will change quite drastically.

“Being able to thrive in that kind of world and what it takes to be flexible and quick to learn and you know how to adapt to new things – that’s perhaps one of the most important skills.”

AI is already having an impact on the workforce.

Recently, Westpac experimented with letting its software developers use various AI tools 46% increase in productivity without loss of code quality.

Still, people are concerned about what the new tools might mean for their own jobs. a recent survey found that 36% of employees feared that AI would take over their jobs.

This was a very real concern before Hollywood writers who have demanded protection from studios replacing them with generative AI.

Indeed, the release of Marvel’s latest TV series ‘Secret Invasion’ this week showed why artists may have been concerned when the production was revealed tapped an AI company to build up the show’s opening title sequence.

^{Sam Altman spoke at an event in Melbourne last week. Image: Shelin David}

When asked about the potential regulatory landscape for AI – most of which are not designed to protect existing workers from displacement – Altman told his Australian audience there was a surprising level of interest in his idea that AI could become dangerous.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations around the world about what an international agency, for lack of a better word, would look like for superintelligence management,” he said.

“How we would have a licensing framework; how we would have tests during training, after training, before we deploy it, to make sure no one is going to accidentally do something really bad.

Altman previously told a Hearing of the US Congress that he wanted AI development to be licensed.