LADUE, Mo. – Sam Altman, the St. Louis-raised entrepreneur behind ChatGPT, paid a visit to his alma mater John Burroughs High School last week to discuss new advancements in artificial intelligence and his journey from student to a tech leader.

His visit came just one day after the newest model of ChatGPT, known as OpenAI o1 , was launched last Thursday. The new model is touted for its abilities to solve more complex tasks in science, coding and mathematics.

Altman says the developments were several years in the making and considers the new model a step forward for the field of artificial intelligence.

“We launched a model for the first time that can reason, sort of like a human model,” said Altman. “It scores at a benchmark called GPQA, which is sort of hard questions and a bunch of topics. It does better than human PHD students. It does great at math competitions, great at programming competitions. It’s the first time, at least for me using the model, where I’m like, ‘Ah,’ this is really, really smart. I think this is sort of a fairly significant advancement towards really useful general purpose intelligences and the ability to help us invent new things, discover new science, make great educational tools, use it for healthcare. The whole germane of this stuff, I think this our biggest step forward in quite awhile.”

Altman said he was really happy to visit John Burroughs High School last Friday and says its computer science lab was where he really started thinking about working on AI services.

According to a previous report with the New Yorker , Altman grasped the system behind area codes in nursery school, and learned to program and disassemble a Macintosh at the age of eight.

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During his latest visit, Altman spent more than 25 minutes answering questions on critical skills, time management and fostering positive human behavior in the AI industry. He also emphasized the importance of taking calculated risks and driving innovation.

“Most things are not a one-way door,” he said. “You can try something. I it doesn’t work out, you can undo it and try something else. So I think in what is now a very dynamic world, the risky thing is to not go try that thing that might really work out. And then you look back on your career 10, 20, 30 years later, and you say, ‘Man, I wish I had tried the thing that I really wanted to try.’”

Altman, a 2003 graduate of John Burroughs, is currently the CEO of OpenAI and previously the president of tech startup Y Combinator. For the full video of his recent remarks at John Burroughs High School, click here .

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