Sam Altman outlines 3 AI endgames, including one company dominating all rivals
A scenario includes a single company becomes powerful enough to shut every rival out and 'melt everyone else’s GPUs'
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reportedly outlined three possible endgames for superintelligence including one where a one company becomes powerful enough to dominate all the competitors.
As reported by The Information citing the sources familiar to the matter, OpenAI’s internal briefing to the employees consists of three governance (endgames) scenarios.
The first scenario is based on the IAEA model, an international oversight body to regulate AI robustly. The body would be similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency mandated for enforcing strict safety protocols, pre-release audits and conducts independent verification across all global frontier labs.
The second one is “Demis plan” named after Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis’s original concept of a CERN for AI. The primary AI labs would merge or channel their operational research through a single international consortium supplying frontier models to participating nations.
As per Altman’s stance, this is evaluated as a potential high-coordination alternative to prevent an uncoordinated arms race.
And the third endgame scenario is more frightening based on one developer achieving AI that can improve itself, gains overwhelming economic power, and uses it to “melt everyone else’s GPUs” and starve rivals of hardware resources. Altman called it Eliezer plan named after AI safety theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Speaking about the favourability of endgames, Altman reportedly favors this path, viewing global regulatory oversight as the most balanced approach to safety.
He explicitly rejected the third scenario: "Obviously I think that one’s terrible." But he also reportedly told staff that OpenAI cannot afford to lose ground to competitors.
Increasingly, realistic scenarios are being envisioned, driven by the fact that AI is gaining such momentum and potential that global coordination is becoming necessary.
Against the backdrop of growing AI capabilities, the international community is calling for robust AI regulation. Chaired by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, the White House task force recently adopted its formal charter. The SIF focuses on establishing breach, hack, and rogue-model reporting protocols following early test incidents.
