Sarah Friar, Chief Financial Officer of OpenAI, said President-elect Donald Trump could be “president of this AI generation” as he will take over office just when the key foundation for artificial general intelligence is being laid.
Sarah Friar joined OpenAI as the company’s first CFO six months ago after a stint with Nextdoor. In an interview at the ReutersNEXT conference, she said Trump would be the “President of this AI generation.”
Friar says he will be at the beginning of AGI progression in which technology can outperform human capabilities across the most valuable tasks. She also waved off any strong warnings against OpenAI from Elon Musk, a close Trump adviser. Friar said that she trusts Musk, a competitor, to respect national interests and play fair.
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, has consistently disagreed with changes at the company that whittled down the nonprofit board’s control. Since then, he has gone on to become a top adviser to Trump during the transition and is now heading up a rival artificial intelligence firm, xAI.
Musk, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead a team of Trump’s choosing in an effort to reduce government spending and waste.
OpenAI CFO expects technology advancement to surprise people
Friar added that OpenAI’s newly launched video tool, Sora, caused a big stir during the launch week. She also said that new account sign-ups were put on hold after its release and did not say when they would resume.
She said part of the reason is the need for more capacity. Another is caution—the tool is only being used by a tiny fraction of customers, so the company can “listen and learn.” She added that this is a different approach from how it handled ChatGPT.
Fiar said, “There are places where we will go a little slower to make sure that we are constantly putting safety first as well.”
OpenAI is expected to roll out more AI agents or autonomous tools assisted by base models with better reasoning capabilities for everyday tasks. These tools could hit the market in the upcoming year.
Friar added that people will be surprised by how fast technology advances. She also thinks there will be a lot of progress next year. The fast-growing company has shown a renewed commitment to consolidating its relationships with its most prominent backer and tech partner, Microsoft.
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