Sam Altman could not sleep for two nights, excited by what OpenAI’s new model did; Then came an unexpected sadness

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman experienced a rollercoaster of emotions after watching an internal AI model rapidly tackle some of academia’s most difficult challenges, leaving him sleepless with excitement before giving way to a surprising wave of sadness. The revelation came during an informal conversation over an interview with Stripe co-founder John Collison. Altman pulled back the curtain on an internal testing session that followed recent company claims regarding a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations – a development that has stirred debate across the global mathematics community.Inside the ‘Hold My Beer’ channelRecounting one weekend to Collison, Altman admitted he was sharing details he probably was not supposed to disclose. According to Altman, OpenAI researchers set up an internal channel nicknamed “Model Name - Hold My Beer.” Altman said that team members began feeding the newly arrived model the most stubborn intellectual bottlenecks they had encountered, including:The single hardest research problems researchers had faced throughout their entire academic careersLong-standing, unresolved questions pulled across multiple scientific and academic disciplinesComplex problems that nobody on the team expected an artificial intelligence system could solve"The model was just knocking down one after the other,” Altman said, noting that the breakthroughs kept him awake for two consecutive nights purely from adrenaline and excitement.The rising cost of discoveryThe computational power behind these breakthroughs has come with an immense price tag. Altman disclosed that generating the Navier-Stokes proof alone required approximately $10 million in compute.When asked if the broader mathematical work reached into hundreds of millions of dollars, Altman confirmed it was in that territory, adding that the research covers far more scientific ground than what OpenAI has shared publicly to date.Why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was excited and sad at the same timeYet the initial surge of excitement soon gave way to a deeper reaction. Altman expressed sadness at the realisation that a defining chapter of human intellectual pursuit may be drawing to a close.“I also had much more sadness and melancholy, and a feeling of something ending than I was expecting,” Altman confessed.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.