OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a rosy outlook on the future of AI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sees AI producing "massive prosperity" in a future that is "so bright that no one can do it justice by trying to write about it now."

Why it matters: That sounds pretty great, but "now" is where we all live and work — and right now the tech industry is locked in an epic debate about whether AI can deliver on its flood of promises.

The big picture: Since ChatGPT's debut nearly two years ago, millions of users around the world have been mesmerized by the ability of generative AI to produce text and images — but AI still makes things up, behaves unpredictably and costs a ton to build and run.

In Altman's view, the jury is in and the verdict on AI is clear: "Deep learning works, and we will solve the remaining problems."

• In a manifesto titled "The Intelligence Age" posted to his personal website Monday, Altman said that OpenAI's strategy of scaling AI up will continue to pay off.
• "AI is going to get better with scale, and that will lead to meaningful improvements to the lives of people around the world."
• "It will not be an entirely positive story," Altman admits, mentioning the prospect of labor-market disruptions.
• But he doesn't even bother to counter the fears many experts in the field still hold that a superintelligent AI could turn against its creators and threaten civilization.

The other side: Altman's bright vision faces three different tides of skepticism from different constituencies in tech.

• A significant number of people with technical expertise believe that the OpenAI approach alone will not "solve the remaining problems," and that different kinds of machine-learning approaches beyond today's generative-AI norms will be needed.
• Meanwhile, some on Wall Street have begun to doubt that AI will deliver near-term profits that would support the massive valuations the stock market has given AI firms.
• At the same time, while some programmers and specialists are wowed by AI-aided productivity gains, many everyday users are still trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.

Altman's answers are long on enthusiasm but short on specifics.

• To the technical community, Altman is saying, Trust me, I'm seeing things you wouldn't believe coming down the pike!
• To investors, Altman is saying the long-term payoff will be so huge that they should stop worrying about next quarter. After all, "superintelligence" is coming in "a few thousand days."
• To the rest of us, Altman is saying, Just hold on and eventually AI will be teaching your kids, curing your health problems and changing your world.

Zoom out: Altman's essay, like Marc Andreessen's more libertarian-driven Techno-Optimist Manifesto, foresees tech eventually delivering a tide of prosperity so massive it will sweep away all humanity's social and political problems.

• The vision, which has transfixed many of Silicon Valley's leaders in recent years, is rooted in science fiction portrayals of "superabundant" civilizations to come.
• Many AI enthusiasts cite the influence of Iain M. Banks' popular "Culture" novels, which portray a far future fully liberated by technology from material want (but still in search of meaning).

Yes, but: Altman admits that the Intelligence Age might have some distribution problems.

• "If we don't build enough infrastructure, AI will be a very limited resource that wars get fought over and that becomes mostly a tool for rich people," Altman writes.
• To avoid that nightmare, he says "we need to drive down the cost of compute and make it abundant (which requires lots of energy and chips)."
• "I think, you know, intelligence 'too cheap to meter' is not a literal statement, but it's a nice aspiration," he told Axios' Ina Fried in a Monday onstage interview.

Reality check: OpenAI is reportedly closing on a new investment round of around $6 billion that values the startup around $150 billion.

• That gives Altman plenty of incentive to lay out just how phenomenally valuable AI could be down the road.

The bottom line: Today's AI might really usher in a promised land of plenty, and that's a gamble many in the industry believe is worth the risk.

• But for those who study the history of technology, Altman's lofty rhetoric carries echoes of similar forecasts that have accompanied every wave of technical innovation — from steam power to electricity to cars, phones and TV to the internet.
• Yes, each of those changed the world, but none of them solved the world's stubborn problems the way their giddy promoters predicted.