OpenAI chief suggests AI agents will make their appearance this year. But can Europe cope?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expects AI agents to enter the workforce as early as this year, he writes in a personal blog post. These AI systems can make autonomous decisions and act purposefully, making choices and performing tasks with minimal human intervention.

Since the launch of ChatGPT more than two years ago, AI has become easily accessible to everyone. Smart technology, but not yet able to think like a human for now. However, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, aims to develop technology that can eventually emulate many human tasks. While many experts believe this is still far in the future, OpenAI chief Sam Altman states in his blog post that they know exactly how to build this technology.

The technology to enable computers to think like humans is called AGI: artificial general intelligence, or artificial general intelligence. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the first steps toward AGI have been taken. “We are now confident that we know how to build AGI as we traditionally understood it,” Altman states. “We believe that by 2025, we will see the first AI agents enter the workforce and can substantially change the output of businesses.”

Automated action

AI is already being used in many industries today, primarily to automate processes. However, AGI will go a step further: it will be able to perform tasks and make decisions independently, without constant human guidance. These so-called AI agents will act as personal assistants to human workers, taking over administrative tasks such as calendar management or planning activities. Although they perform specialized tasks independently, they continue to act at the behest of humans.

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Opportunities and challenges for Europe

But: can AI agents actually flourish in Europe? Earlier, the AI Act was passed. This European law aims to provide AI developers and operators with clear requirements and obligations regarding applications of AI. This provides a clear framework. At the same time, there is a danger of falling behind countries like China and the U.S.

“We have wonderful AI companies in Europe. But there is a risk that they will leave if they run into too many legal restrictions,” Belgian AI expert Jens Bontinck, working at ML6, previously told IO+. “Like water, companies end up choosing the path of least resistance.”

So overregulation is a trap. Yet Europe is doing well in other AI areas. When it comes to data sharing, for example. Hugging Face, for example, is a frontrunner in open source. “And at ML6 we have also been collecting information about our customers for years. About their needs, about AI use cases, etcetera. This information can still be very valuable ten years from now. Old data plays a crucial role in training AI models. You will see that in Europe we will make much faster steps forward if we build on each other's data.”

Taking over our work?

Bontinck, by the way, does not fear that auto-AI will take over the work of humans. “By deploying technology in the right way, we can focus on things we excel at. For example, having valuable conversations, as we do now.”