Advanced artificial intelligence models have become mostly smarter than the world’s brightest scientists and are now capable of performing significant portions of white-collar work, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said on Monday.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference in the United Arab Emirates, Altman highlighted the rapid progress in AI capabilities over the past year.
“At the start of this year, AI was mostly not as smart as our smartest scientist, and now it’s mostly smarter than them,” Altman said.
“AI was mostly not able to do a lot of white-collar jobs, and now it mostly can do a lot of parts of that,” he added.
Humans Must Remain in Control
Altman acknowledged that advances in artificial intelligence could have a disruptive impact on global economies and employment. However, he stressed that human judgement, creativity and accountability must remain central to the technology’s development and use.
“We think it is absolutely critical that people remain in control of the future; there should not be a handoff to AI, there should not be a gradual ‘we are going to let AI decide what is best for us,'” he said.
“AI needs to be a tool built for people and needs to serve people, not the other way around,” Altman added.
His remarks come amid growing debate over how increasingly capable AI systems could reshape workplaces, decision-making and the global economy.
Electricity Demand a Major Challenge
Addressing concerns about the enormous electricity requirements of AI computing infrastructure, Altman identified physical power supply as the sector’s biggest bottleneck.
“Everything else we’re going to make huge progress on, except atoms are still atoms and the physical world that has to power this is going to be the dominant factor of the cost and the abundance,” he said.
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Altman also highlighted the sharp increase in global AI usage, noting that average monthly token consumption per person had risen from almost zero six years ago to approximately 100,000 tokens.
He said the largest institutional users were consuming around 500 billion tokens every month, illustrating the growing demand for computing resources.
UAE Emerges as Major AI Market
Highlighting the United Arab Emirates’ rapid adoption of technology, Altman said around 80 per cent of young people in the country used ChatGPT on a weekly basis.
The figures reflect the growing adoption of artificial intelligence in the UAE, where government institutions and businesses have increasingly focused on developing digital infrastructure and expanding AI applications.
During the event, OpenAI announced partnerships with Emirati technology group G42 and state oil producer Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).
The agreements mark the first global deployment of OpenAI’s frontier models by an energy company.
The partnerships highlight the expanding role of artificial intelligence beyond conventional software and office-based applications, with major energy companies also exploring how advanced AI systems can support their operations.
