Sam Altman admits AI has brought ‘a real change to how capitalism has worked,’ but his solution to that is typical ‘tech bro’ nonsense

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just admitted that artificial intelligence is truly changing how capitalism works, but his proposed solutions, or lack thereof, feel pretty typical for a tech titan. Speaking at a recent summit, Altman openly discussed the public relations challenges facing AI, acknowledging that the technology is fundamentally shifting the dynamic between capital and labor, as reported by Futurism.

It’s interesting to hear him talk about the “AI washing” phenomenon, where companies blame AI for layoffs even when it’s really about other market pressures. He noted, for example, that “data centers are getting blamed for electricity prices hikes. Almost every company that does layoffs is blaming AI, whether or not it really is about AI.” Regardless of the true cause, he conceded that AI is giving businesses, or “capital,” a huge leg up in eroding worker power. He sees us moving from an economy of scarcity to one of “abundance,” which, on the surface, sounds great, right?

But this shift has some serious implications. “So that’s, like, a real change to how capitalism has worked,” Altman said, pointing out that the economic system has always relied on a delicate balance between business owners and workers. He’s right, that balance has always been a bit shaky, but now it’s facing a massive disruption. He added, “if it’s hard in many of our current jobs to outwork a GPU, then that changes. If there was an easy consensus answer, we’d have done it by now, so I don’t think anyone knows what to do.”

It sounds like Altman is just throwing his hands up, which is a bit concerning coming from someone at the forefront of this whole tech revolution

Honestly, this kind of observation from Altman feels like its own clever bit of AI-washing. By stating the obvious—that AI mostly benefits the ruling class by undermining worker power—he frames the outcome as an inevitable force of nature. This approach conveniently washes his hands of any responsibility for the consequences.

For instance, OpenAI, under Altman’s leadership, hasn’t made any significant commitments to worker welfare. In fact, it often seems to be doing the opposite. You won’t find them advocating for sectoral bargaining in the tech industry, or any other industry for that matter. There’s no push for cost-of-living reductions that would actually help the working class survive this AI onslaught. And forget about worker representation within OpenAI’s own governance structure; that’s just not happening.

It really makes you wonder if Altman’s concern is purely cosmetic. He drives this point home later in his appearance, declaring that the ultimate goal is to make AI “too cheap to meter.” He envisions a world where “we want to flood the world with intelligence,” and “we want people to just use it for everything.”

While the idea of pervasive, cheap intelligence sounds futuristic and cool, it leaves a massive unanswered question. If we’re not addressing the fundamental capital-labor relationship that he so astutely acknowledges, then who exactly benefits when this flood of intelligence comes for us all?