OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman on 2 September warned governments against excluding artificial intelligence from their economies, comparing such a move to rejecting electricity more than a century ago and arguing that AI adoption is now indispensable for economic growth and improved public services. Altman made the remarks during a fireside chat with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at an event in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, attended by representatives of G20 economies.

The Electricity Analogy

'I think it would be approximately as bad of an idea to say we're not gonna have AI in our country as it was to say we're not gonna have electricity in our country, you know, back 100 plus years ago,' Altman said. He acknowledged that governments retain the right to craft different regulatory frameworks and choose whether to build or lease data centre infrastructure. However, he was unequivocal that using the technology itself was no longer a matter of choice.

'For sure, I think it is not negotiable. You have to use it,' he stated. 'The economic growth and benefit to people that can come from this, the value to a country is too high to ignore.'

AI as an Engine for Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Altman predicted that artificial intelligence would trigger the largest boom in entrepreneurship and small-business creation the world has ever seen, by placing expertise, software, and other previously costly resources within reach of ordinary people. He cited a meeting with a laundromat operator who had begun using ChatGPT for marketing, legal contract advice, and vendor management — describing him as among the earliest examples he had encountered of someone deploying AI effectively to run a business.

The pace of idea development, he noted, has since accelerated dramatically. 'The work that we expected a startup to accomplish in three months is now probably doable in, like, 17 minutes with Codex,' Altman said. 'The world is not caught up with what this is going to mean.'

AI as a Democratising Force

Looking further ahead, Altman envisioned AI systems evolving into persistent virtual collaborators capable of working continuously alongside people. He argued the technology could widen access to medical care, education, and services that have historically been available primarily to wealthier individuals. His longer-term prediction: AI will become so deeply embedded in everyday products that it ceases to be discussed as a distinct technology. 'My prediction is we won't be talking about AI as much as we do in a decade from now, because we'll just expect it everywhere,' he said.

Risks: Cybersecurity, Power Concentration, and Biosecurity

Altman was candid about the dangers that rapid adoption could bring. He flagged cybersecurity as requiring urgent attention, warned of biosecurity threats, and raised the prospect of AI control becoming dangerously concentrated among a small group of actors. 'I think some things are gonna go very wrong with cybersecurity unless people act quite urgently,' he said. 'Another thing that could go wrong is too much concentration of power... In many ways, AI should be an equalising force in the world.'

He also cautioned that without sufficient investment in computing infrastructure, AI risked remaining an expensive commodity accessible mainly to wealthy users — even as chips and algorithms grow more efficient. This comes amid a global scramble among governments and corporations to secure GPU capacity and build sovereign AI capabilities.

Background: OpenAI and ChatGPT

OpenAI was founded in late 2015 and began operations in January 2016. Its ChatGPT service, released publicly in November 2022, accelerated the mainstreaming of generative AI by enabling users to produce text, analyse information, and write computer code through conversational prompts. The platform's rapid uptake reshaped public and policy debate around AI globally, setting the stage for the kind of G20-level conversations Altman is now a central figure in.