Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, has published “The Gentle Singularity,” forecasting that artificial general intelligence will transform work, energy and research within 15 years. He wrote that 2026 will “likely” see AI systems capable of producing novel insights. Co-founder Greg Brockman said the new o3 and o4-mini reasoning models already kindle fresh ideas.
Rivals Google (AlphaEvolve), FutureHouse, and Anthropic pursue similar aims, targeting breakthroughs in drug discovery and material science. Former OpenAI research head Kenneth Stanley, now at Lila Sciences, warned that instilling true creativity in machines remains hard. Analysts say Altman’s essay signals OpenAI’s intention to accelerate development of insight-generating models later this year.
