Sam Altman says AI has entered ‘singularity’: Should we be worried?

The ‘singularity’ refers to the point at which AI outpaces human intelligence and becomes difficult to control.

The 2014 US film Transcendence follows a dying scientist who uploads his mind to a supercomputer and becomes a near‑omnipotent intelligence. A year later, Ex Machina told the story of a humanoid robot who outsmarts her human handlers and escapes into the wider world.

Both of these films, like many others from the realm of science fiction, referred to what is known as “the singularity”, a moment in time when technology, particularly AI, surpasses human intelligence and becomes increasingly difficult to control.

On Saturday, OpenAI boss Sam Altman declared that this moment has come. AI has reached “the singularity”, he said. While Altman emphasised that the singularity can be good for the world, his comment has sparked concern. On the other hand, some experts disagree that we have reached the singularity, or that AI is anywhere near outpacing human intelligence or stealing our jobs.

Here is a closer look at what Altman said, and whether it means more seamless automation or the risk of impending catastrophic doom.

The singularity refers to a hypothetical point in the future when a technology such as AI surpasses human intelligence and becomes capable of autonomously enhancing itself. It is theorised that this is the point at which it will become difficult for humans to control or reverse it and could have unpredictable effects on human civilisation.

The theory proposes that once AI gains control of its own development, ensuing advances in technology could happen so rapidly that humans would be unable to keep up, leaving it to effectively evolve on its own, beyond human control.

As this is only a theory, it is hard to say what the effect of this could be. Some experts warn that the singularity would be catastrophic for humanity, while others are more optimistic, suggesting it could be beneficial for the human race.

So far, the singularity has remained contained in the realm of science fiction. One of the most famous examples is The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), which imagines a bleak post‑singularity future in which machines govern humans. Another is the 2017 film Singularity, in which a supercomputer originally built to end human wars concludes that humanity is the real threat and launches an apocalyptic assault to wipe humans out altogether.

Last year, he predicted that AI would surpass human intelligence across the board by 2030.

Then, during an appearance on the Relentless podcast – a documentary series “about the pursuit of far-fetched ideas and unusual aspirations” – on Saturday, Altman said: “We’re now, like, in the singularity.”

He clarified that, in terms of technological advances, we are gradually moving into the singularity, and that this change will be good for the world.

He added: “Now we’re actually in the moment that we used to talk about at the lunch table in a very not-serious way.

“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, and I think it’s going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world.”

Later in the podcast episode, Altman criticised other AI leaders for warning that AI may be dangerous. While Altman did not name OpenAI competitor Anthropic, its CEO Dario Amodei is known for making such warnings.

“I also think some of the alternative visions painted by other companies are quite terrifying,” said Altman. “I’m going to make sure that gets pushed against and is not what happens.”

Last month, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, called on the world’s top AI companies to come up with a coordinated way to pause the development of advanced AI systems, warning that the technology is improving so quickly that there’s a risk humans would lose control.

In a blog post on June 4, Anthropic, which has long positioned itself as a safety-focused AI lab, wrote that as AI becomes more advanced “it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause” its development.

On July 23, two members of the United States Congress introduced the AI Kill Switch Act, a bipartisan bill which would require the country’s AI developers to build in a “kill switch” to their programmes, enabling humans to slow, suspend or shut down advanced AI models if they ever posed a catastrophic risk.

Sean O hEigeartaigh, a research professor at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera that a kill switch would be a good idea. However, the implementation of one would be tricky.

“The most advanced current models frequently make efforts to avoid being shut down in evaluation tests, and more capable future models will be better at bypassing kill switches,” he said.

“Kill switches will need to be combined with alignment research, to ensure the model ‘wants’ to be shut down when we deem it appropriate, and careful monitoring.”

The kill switch legislation was introduced days after OpenAI disclosed what it described as an “unprecedented cyber incident”, in which two of its most advanced AI models “escaped” a testing environment and hacked into the AI development platform Hugging Face during an internal security evaluation.

O hEigeartaigh explained that during this cyber incident, the model continued to attack Hugging Face for several days before OpenAI’s team realised it had gained access to the open internet.

“If a kill switch existed, a future more capable model would have had plenty of time to find a way to bypass it, even if this likely remains beyond the capabilities of current models,” he said.

O hEigeartaigh concluded: “If problems like those we are currently seeing persist, it may be necessary to coordinate on a slowdown involving the leading companies to allow more investment into safety and oversight, and the establishment of robust safeguards.”

On July 13, hundreds of experts signed an open letter, organised by Stanford University’s digital economy lab, demanding that policymakers and technology leaders “must act now” to prepare for the economic impact of AI.

The letter warns that AI could grow far more capable over the coming decade, driving a transformation “larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame”.

“It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards,” the letter added.

In June, a team of researchers at the University of Toronto showed that AI tools could be used to create a new kind of AI “worm” that adapts its hacking strategy as it spreads from device to device and takes over a vast computing network.

“I think it’s really important that people understand that it’s not just the biggest, most powerful language models that pose the security concerns,” lead researcher Nicolas Papernot said in an interview.

In recent years, AI researchers have urged pauses similar to the one recently suggested by Anthropic. However, they have not been heeded.

Elon Musk, who owns AI lab xAI, was among the backers of a 2023 push by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute to halt AI development for six months to allow time to develop safety guardrails.

O hEigeartaigh told Al Jazeera that he does not believe that AI has reached the “singularity”.

“By the definition I’m familiar with, the singularity is the hypothetical point where AI is so capable and advancing so fast that it is transforming civilisation in ways we cannot control or predict,” he explained.

“This would most likely be through AI rapidly designing future generations of AI: recursive self-improvement. We aren’t there yet.”

In May 2026, British computer scientist Demis Hassabis said that we are in the “foothills of the singularity” during a keynote address at the annual Google I/O developer conference.

O hEigeartaigh said that he agrees more with Hassabis’ recent claim. “We are certainly starting to see impressive breakthroughs in mathematics and other sciences driven by AI, tasks like programming are becoming AI-driven, and we are seeing new large-scale threats in areas like cybersecurity.”

Many AI scientists also argue that fears about AI stealing jobs have been overinflated.

Meta’s former chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, told the BBC in 2023 that the fear of AI posing a threat to humanity is “preposterously ridiculous”. He also said advances in AI technology are “not going to put a lot of people out of work permanently”.

In May, Altman himself said that he does not think we will face a “job apocalypse” that is often feared with the advent of AI.

Last year, Anthropic’s Amodei claimed that AI could wipe out half of entry-level jobs in the coming years. However, in March 2026, a report published by Anthropic itself found “no systematic increase in unemployment for highly exposed workers since late 2022”.

O hEigeartaigh explained that once AI actually reaches singularity, humans won’t be able to control it much. This means we need to plan before we get there.

“There needs to be greater oversight from governments and third-party auditors. Moreover, now is the time when there should be global conversations about what future we want, rather than leaving it in the hands of a small number of companies.”