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Sam Altman’s Three Reported Endgames for Governing Superintelligence
Sam Altman reportedly described three paths for governing superintelligence: international oversight, a CERN like collaboration among major AI labs, or one developer dominating rivals’ access to computing.
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- Sam Altman reportedly described three paths for governing superintelligence: international oversight, a CERN like collaboration among major AI labs, or one developer dominating rivals’ access to computing.
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openai.comCreate a landscape editorial hero image for this Studio Global article: What did Sam Altman reportedly tell OpenAI employees about three possible superintelligence endgames—an IAEA-style international watchdog en. Article summary: Altman reportedly presented OpenAI employees with three possible ways to govern superintelligence: international oversight, consolidation of the major labs, or unilateral dominance by one developer; he favored the first . Topic tags: general, general web, user generated, news. Style: premium digital editorial illustration, source-backed research mood, clean composition, high detail, modern web publication hero. Use reference image context only for broad subject, composition, and topical grounding; do not copy the exact image. Avoid: logos, brand marks, copyrighted characters, real person likenesses, fake screenshots, UI text, readable text, watermarks, charts w
Sam Altman reportedly walked OpenAI employees through three possible ways to govern the development of superintelligence: international oversight, a shared organization for major AI labs, or a single developer gaining enough power to block rivals. Reporting says Altman appeared to favor international oversight and described the third scenario as terrible. These were presented as possible endgames, not as three adopted OpenAI policies. 1
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The three scenarios
1. An international watchdog
The first option would create an international body modeled on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with a role in setting or enforcing AI safety standards. Reports describe the model as involving oversight of advanced AI systems, including inspections or audits. 1
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The available reporting does not establish a complete plan for the body’s powers. In particular, it does not substantiate every detail sometimes attached to the proposal, such as monitoring both compute and energy use, or confirm that the internal discussion was a direct continuation of a specific May 2023 proposal.
2. The “Demis Plan”
The second option, dubbed the “Demis Plan,” would bring major AI labs together in a CERN-like organization or have them work under a shared body. The name refers to Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis; reporter Amir Efrati connected the idea to a proposal from around 2017. 5
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One account describes the proposed organization supplying models to countries that cooperate with it. 5 The central idea is coordination through shared ownership or governance, rather than competition among separate labs.
3. The “Eliezer Plan”
The third scenario is named for AI safety researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky. In the version attributed to Altman’s discussion, a developer reaches a decisive lead through self-improving AI, then uses its resulting power to restrict rivals’ access to computing resources—the scenario summarized as “melting everyone else’s GPUs.” Reports say Altman rejected this outcome. 3
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What Yudkowsky’s hypothetical does—and doesn’t—mean
The label can blur two different ideas. Accounts of Yudkowsky’s 2022 writing describe a “pivotal act” in which an aligned AGI would stop others from building unaligned AGI. 7
10 That is not the same scenario as a company using its advantage to secure dominance over competing developers.
A separate report says Yudkowsky later clarified that his “burn all GPUs” example was not a proposal. 34 The available sources do not provide enough of his full response to reconstruct all its qualifications. The key distinction supported here is between a hypothetical intervention intended to prevent unaligned AGI and a scenario centered on one developer monopolizing access to compute.
The available reporting also does not establish that OpenAI employees interpreted the “Eliezer Plan” label as a jab at Anthropic. Naming the scenario after Yudkowsky is not evidence that Anthropic endorses it or that the label was aimed at the company.
The underlying governance trade-off
The three scenarios differ in where power would sit: with an international oversight body, within a shared organization for leading labs, or with one dominant developer. Altman’s reported preference for the first—and rejection of the third—makes the contrast between coordinated oversight and concentrated control the clearest takeaway from the discussion. 1
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Sam Altman reportedly described three paths for governing superintelligence: international oversight, a CERN like collaboration among major AI labs, or one developer dominating rivals’ access to computing.
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