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Sam Altman says humanity is “close to building digital superintelligence”Intelligent robots that can build other robots “aren’t that far off” He sees “whole classes of jobs going away” but “capabilities will go up equally quickly, and we’ll all get better stuff”In a long blog post, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has set out his vision of the future and reveals how artificial general intelligence (AGI) is now inevitable and about to change the world.In what could be viewed as an attempt to explain why we haven’t achieved AGI quite yet, Altman seems at pains to stress that the progress of AI as a gentle curve rather than a rapid acceleration, but that we are now “past the event horizon” and that “when we look back in a few decades, the gradual changes will have amounted to something big.”“From a relativistic perspective, the singularity happens bit by bit", writes Altman, "and the merge happens slowly. We are climbing the long arc of exponential technological progress; it always looks vertical looking forward and flat going backwards, but it’s one smooth curve.“But even with a more decelerated timeline, Altman is confident that we’re on our way to AGI, and predicts three ways it will shape the future:1. RoboticsOf particular interest to Altman is the role that robotics are going to play in the future:“2025 has seen the arrival of agents that can do real cognitive work; writing computer code will never be the same. 2026 will likely see the arrival of systems that can figure out novel insights. 2027 may see the arrival of robots that can do tasks in the real world.”To do real tasks in the world, as Altman imagines, the robots would need to be humanoid, since our world is designed to be used by humans, after all.Altman says “...robots that can build other robots … aren’t that far off. If we have to make the first million humanoid robots the old-fashioned way, but then they can operate the entire supply chain – digging and refining minerals, driving trucks, running factories, etc – to build more robots, which can build more chip fabrication facilities, data centers, etc, then the rate of progress will obviously be quite different.”2. Job losses but also opportunitiesAltman says society will have to change to adapt to AI, on the one hand through job losses, but also through increased opportunities:“The rate of technological progress will keep accelerating, and it will continue to be the case that people are capable of adapting to almost anything. There will be very hard parts like whole classes of jobs going away, but on the other hand the world will be getting so much richer so quickly that we’ll be able to seriously entertain new policy ideas we never could before.”Altman seems to balance the changing job landscape with the new opportunities that superintelligence will bring: “...maybe we will go from solving high-energy physics one year to beginning space colonization the next year; or from a major materials science breakthrough one year to true high-bandwidth brain-computer interfaces the next year.”3. AGI will be cheap and widely availableIn Altman’s bold new future, superintelligence will be cheap and widely available. When describing the best path forward, Altman first suggests we solve the “alignment problem”, which involves getting “...AI systems to learn and act towards what we collectively really want over the long-term”.“Then [we need to] focus on making superintelligence cheap, widely available, and not too concentrated with any person, company, or country … Giving users a lot of freedom, within broad bounds society has to decide on, seems very important. The sooner the world can start a conversation about what these broad bounds are and how we define collective alignment, the better.”It ain’t necessarily soReading Altman’s blog, there’s a kind of inevitability behind his prediction that humanity is marching uninterrupted towards AGI. It’s like he’s seen the future, and there’s no room for doubt in his vision, but is he right?Altman’s vision stands in stark contrast to the recent paper from Apple that suggested we are a lot farther away from achieving AGI than many AI advocates would like.“The illusion of thinking”, a new research paper from Apple, states that “despite their sophisticated self-reflection mechanisms learned through reinforcement learning, these models fail to develop generalizable problem-solving capabilities for planning tasks, with performance collapsing to zero beyond a certain complexity threshold.”The research was conducted on Large Reasoning Models, like OpenAI’s o1/o3 models and Claude 3.7 Sonnet Thinking.“Particularly concerning is the counterintuitive reduction in reasoning effort as problems approach critical complexity, suggesting an inherent compute scaling limit in LRMs. “, the paper says.In contrast, Altman is convinced that “Intelligence too cheap to meter is well within grasp. This may sound crazy to say, but if we told you back in 2020 we were going to be where we are today, it probably sounded more crazy than our current predictions about 2030.”As with all predictions about the future, we’ll find out if Altman is right soon enough.You might also likeThis is what really happened with Siri and Apple Intelligence, according to AppleThe 7 big Apple Intelligence announcements from WWDC 2025OpenAI's high-minded approach to AI-human relationships ignores reality

OpenAI brings Google Cloud on board for cloud computing infrastructureMicrosoft is no longer OpenAI's sole provider after a shakeupGoogle shares are up, Microsoft shares downDespite having a long history with Microsoft, OpenAI is believed to have signed a deal with Google Cloud to help it meet rising demands for cloud computing services.Reuters reports the deal was finalized in May 2025 after months of negotiating, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter.The finer details of its Google Cloud deal are unknown, but the move reflects OpenAI's effort to reduce its reliance on a single vendor – in this case, Microsoft – having recently announced its own $500 billion Stargate Project earlier in 2025.OpenAI agreement with Google CloudAlthough Microsoft has fuelled much of OpenAI's growth with cloud infrastructure throughout a period of rapid expansion, the company stopped being its sole partner in March 2025, when OpenAI brought CoreWeave on board in a deal worth around $12 billion.Now, Google Cloud will also provide resources to help OpenAI train and run its AI models.During its first quarter of 2025, Google Cloud generated $12.3 billion in revenue, or nearly 14% of Google's total revenue. A deal with OpenAI could significantly increase the cloud division's revenue.However, ChatGPT's success has allowed OpenAI to explore in-house opportunities.Besides the Stargate Project, in collaboration with SoftBank and Oracle, OpenAI is also working on its own AI chip, which could spell disaster for Nvidia, which has once again taken prime position as the world's most valuable company, with a market cap of $3.510 trillion.Sceptics are also uncertain about how Google Cloud's deal with OpenAI could impact its existing operations and customers, with the cloud hyperscaler already struggling to meet demand on occasions.Google shares rose 2.1% after the news, with Microsoft shares dipping 0.6%, pulling it into second position with a market cap of $3.500 trillion.You might also likeWe've listed the best AI toolsGet a hand crafting your best work with the best AI writers"Just do it": Sam Altman says businesses looking to adopt AI should go ahead – or risk being left behind

The Last of Us creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have confirmed what fans of the game already expected: The Last of Us season 3 is going to centre on Abby's story, with Kaitlyn Dever's character taking center stage.Where The Last of Us season 1 followed the beats of the first game pretty faithfully, the second game is more complex and needs more time to tell its story – so where The Last of Us season 2 centered primarily on Ellie after the horrendous events of episode two and only covered part of the story arc, the third season is going to do the same switch of protagonist we experienced in the game and give us much more time with Abby.That suggests that the rumored fourth and final season (which the show's composer Jake Staley suggests is definite, telling The Last of Us podcast Savage Starlight that "there'll be at least two more seasons, no question") will return to Ellie for its heart-stopping and desperately sad climax.What to expect from The Last of Us season 3As the Hollywood Reporter explains (with some spoilers for season 2's big moments), season 3 is going to feel different. “It’s more of a water season than a fire season,” Druckmann revealed, as Mazin added, “It’s a wetter season than a hotter season.” And "season three is going to be starring – spoiler alert – Kaitlyn."I'm excited about season 3, albeit with some reservations: as someone who loved and was probably deeply traumatized by playing The Last of Us Part II, I felt that season 2 of the TV show didn't feel like the game did.That's inevitable with any adaptation, I know, but there were two things in particular that stood out for me (and for my teen, who's also a fan of the games): Bella Ramsay's portrayal of Ellie, and Kaitlyn Dever's casting as Abby.In the game, Ellie's a monster – and Abby is built like a tank, her muscular body a huge contrast to Ellie's more slender build. But in season 2 Ellie's sad, not mad, and Kaitlyn Dever doesn't have the physical presence of her in-game equivalent. But her rage is just as terrifying, so maybe I just need to forget about the game and let the show do its own thing.I think one of the things Mazin said about the show explains the different tone of the TV program compared to the game: "For me, this is not a show about revenge," he said. "It's a show about grief." But if you've played the game to the end, you'll know that it's about both: it's a meditation on the damage grief can do to people, both to themselves and to others.The Last of Us season 2 is streaming now on HBO Max.You may also likeThe Last of Us season 2 won't be the end of the storyThe Last of Us director Neil Druckmann confirms another game, but it's not another Last of UsThe Last of Us season 3 - what we know so far