OpenAI CEO to visit Seoul as early as next month

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (Reuters-Yonhap)

The CEO behind the company that created the humanlike chatbot ChatGPT is planning to visit Korea as part of his world tour to meet with users, developers and people interested in artificial intelligence.

Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of California-based startup OpenAI, announced via Twitter Thursday that he has planned to visit 17 major cities around the world in May and June.

Altman’s planned stops include Seoul, Toronto, Washington, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos, Madrid, Brussels, Munich, London, Paris, Tel Aviv, Dubai, New Delhi, Singapore, Jakarta and Tokyo.

The exact purpose of the visit and tour dates for each city have not yet been disclosed, but the CEO wrote on his Twitter account: “Hoping to give talks in some of the cities and meet with policymakers.”

On the same day, he made another post, outlining three critical components for a good artificial general intelligence future: aligning super-intelligence, coordinating AGI efforts and implementing a global regulatory framework.

OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public last November, which surprised the world with its ability to learn and adapt quickly to new information as it was designed to generate responses in a conversational style.

Following the announcement of a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment in the startup, Microsoft unveiled the ChatGPT-powered search app Bing. It further looks to bring AI technology to its most recognizable Office apps, including Word and PowerPoint.