Altman: AI Inference Already More Energy-Efficient Than Human Labor Per Unit of Intellectual Output

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Speaking to Forbes on March 26, Sam Altman argued that AI inference costs are already lower per unit of intellectual output than human labor, noting that human intelligence requires decades of biological 'training' and lifetime energy consumption. He framed this as the inflection point where AI-as-labor becomes economically inevitable, challenging conventional comparisons that only stack AI training costs against human effort.