OpenAI consistently said it expects AI progress to continue, even when accused of fear-mongering, marketing or regulatory capture.

Judge as of 2023-11-30. True: OpenAI's public statements before that date (blog posts, charter, Altman's testimony, interviews) repeatedly said it expected AI progress or capabilities to keep advancing, and those statements continued during periods when critics accused OpenAI of fear-mongering, marketing hype or seeking regulatory capture. Mostly true: the record shows such statements were repeated across years, with minor gaps or occasional mixed messaging that does not undercut 'consistently'. Mixed: OpenAI made such statements at some points but not others, or the accusations and the statements did not overlap in time. Mostly false: such statements were rare or isolated, so 'consistently' substantially overstates the record, or OpenAI clearly changed its stated expectations. False: the record shows OpenAI did not make such statements, or publicly said it expected AI progress to stall.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Sam Altman on What Makes Him ‘Super Nervous’ About AI New York Magazine (Intelligencer), On With Kara Swisher · 23 March 2023

   “I think we’re on this very long-term exponential, and I don’t mean that just for AI, although AI too — I mean that as cumulative, human, technological progress — and it’s very hard to calibrate that, and we keep adjusting our expectations.”

2. E2 Sam Altman on What Makes Him ‘Super Nervous’ About AI New York Magazine (Intelligencer), On With Kara Swisher · 23 March 2023

   “We could hit a wall anytime, but our internal road-map documents, when we start a big training run, I think there could be government insight into that.”

3. E3 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AI will reshape society, acknowledges risks: 'A little bit scared of this' ABC News · 16 March 2023

   “"This will be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed," he said.”

4. E4 Read TIME's Full Interview With OpenAI CEO Sam Altman TIME · 21 June 2023

   “It was funny, when I wrote that post, it just got panned. “You’re crazy, this stuff doesn’t make any sense. It’s totally impossible.””

5. E5 Sam Altman on What Makes Him ‘Super Nervous’ About AI New York Magazine (Intelligencer) · 23 March 2023 Own record

   “I think we’re on this very long-term exponential, and I don’t mean that just for AI, although AI too — I mean that as cumulative, human, technological progress — and it’s very hard to calibrate that, and we keep adjusting our expectations.”

6. E6 Sam Altman on What Makes Him ‘Super Nervous’ About AI New York Magazine (Intelligencer) · 23 March 2023 Own record

   “We could hit a wall anytime, but our internal road-map documents, when we start a big training run, I think there could be government insight into that.”

7. E7 Read TIME's Full Interview With OpenAI CEO Sam Altman TIME · 21 June 2023 Own record

   “Also even though in the long term I think all of the hype is warranted, the short term hype is pretty disconnected from the current reality of the technology.”

8. E8 Read TIME's Full Interview With OpenAI CEO Sam Altman TIME · 21 June 2023 Own record

   “It was funny, when I wrote that post, it just got panned. “You’re crazy, this stuff doesn’t make any sense. It’s totally impossible.””

9. E9 Testimony before the U.S. Senate OpenAI · 22 June 2023 Own record

   “We believe that people and our institutions need time to update and adjust to increasingly capable AI, and that everyone who is affected by this technology should have a significant say in how AI develops further.”

10. E10 Better language models and their implications - OpenAI OpenAI · 14 February 2019 Own record

    “Furthermore, the underlying technical innovations inherent to these systems are core to fundamental artificial intelligence research, so it is not possible to control research in these domains without slowing down the progress of AI as a whole.”

11. E11 Panic about overhyped AI risk could lead to the wrong kind of regulation Vox · 3 July 2023

    “But by labeling AI as an “extinction-level” threat, the conversation around such risks gets mired in unprecedented alarmism rather than focusing on addressing these more proximate — and much more likely — challenges.”

12. E12 Sam Altman warns AI could kill us all. But he still wants the world to use it | CNN Business CNN · 31 October 2023

    ““If they honestly believe that this could be bringing about human extinction, then why not just stop?” she said.”

Published interviews and OpenAI documents show OpenAI and Altman repeatedly saying they expected AI capabilities to keep advancing. A 2019 OpenAI post links its research to "the progress of AI as a whole" (E10). In 2023 Altman spoke of a "long-term exponential" and called AI "the greatest technology humanity has yet developed" (E1, E3). He also said "in the long term I think all of the hype is warranted," and his Senate testimony refers to "increasingly capable AI" (E7, E9). A July 2023 Vox piece criticised framing AI as an extinction-level threat as "alarmism", and in October 2023 a critic questioned OpenAI's extinction warnings (E11, E12), so the statements and such criticism overlapped in time. The record is still thin. It has one 2019 item, Altman's remark that "we could hit a wall anytime" is a hedge (E2), and no item here shows a regulatory-capture accusation, so the verdict is mostly true rather than true.