Open AI CEO says era of remote work is over, best products are created by techies working together in office

By Abhik SenguptaOpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, suggests that working from the office is a better model for creating new products, while remote work may result in confusion. Altman made these remarks during a session organised by the Irish-American fintech company, Stripe, on Wednesday, where he also suggested that the technology is not there yet for people to go fully-remote.

The discussion covered the current state of AI, related concerns, and evolving office cultures. Altman’s comments come amidst a growing debate on flexible remote work, hybrid work, or complete office-based work. Numerous global tech companies have implemented strict policies to return employees to the office, at least twice or thrice a week. A considerable number of workers believe that the traditional office-based work model impedes productivity.

When asked to offer advice to early startups, Altman suggested that remote work is over. “The more unclear and early the product is, the more in-person time the team needs to grind together,” he added.

Altman also views remote work as an experiment, which is now over. He said, “I think definitely one of the tech industry’s worst mistakes in a long time was that everybody (thought they) could go full remote forever, and startups didn’t need to be together. There was going to be no loss of creativity. I would say that the experiment on that is over, and the technology is not yet good enough that people can be full remote forever, particularly on startups.”

During the session, Stripe co-founder John Collison described Altman as a dreamer who was once sceptical about the AI technology.

Altman claimed that AI needs to be treated with “extreme seriousness” as there might be “existential risk” attached to the technology. He suggests people earlier perceived that AI tools would “beat humans,” adding that he feels better about the current iteration of AI. He adds, “We now have systems that are really optimising to help us and work in a way that we can sort of see what they’re doing step by step. We can’t see exactly what happens at the normal network. I feel way better.”

He suggests that OpenAI is acting responsibly while adding new updates to ChatGPT. Altman has repeatedly warned against the misuse of tools, like ChatGPT. He has also asked for governments to intervene and form rules to prevent the misuse of the technology.

Meanwhile, Altman has been called to meet US Vice President Kamala Harris along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google chief Sundar Pichai. The White House has asked CEOs to meet with stakeholders to discuss concerns around AI technologies.