Why OpenAI now says AGI won’t matter much

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been saying for years — years! — that artificial general intelligence, or AGI, would be something like a singularity. When we achieve AGI, Altman and others have said, it will fundamentally reshape society.

At the New York Times DealBook Summit this week in New York City, Altman said never mind. AGI is coming really soon, he said, but it’s not going to be a huge deal. Also this week: OpenAI began its “12 days of shipmas” campaign with a new $200 monthly subscription for its latest model. The stakes are lower, the prices are higher. Strange times in the AI race.

But before we get to AI, Nilay and David spend some time talking about the world of subscriptions. Starting with ours! We launched a subscription for The Verge this week, and we’re grateful to everyone who has signed up to support us and be part of our community. Thanks also to everyone who has offered feedback, found bugs, and asked for ad-free podcasts. We’re still new at this whole subscription thing, but we’re learning fast. (And if you have questions, you have a little more time to get them in for next week’s episode! Email vergecast@theverge.com or call 866-VERGE11 to get them in.)

After all that it’s AI time. And finally, in the lightning round, we talk about bitcoin, AI browsers, the fediverse, Intel, Spotify Wrapped, and much more. It may be December, but there’s still an awful lot going on.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with streaming and cable:

And in the lightning round: