Sam Altman has spent years warning that artificial intelligence will eventually surpass human abilities, a threshold commonly described as the “singularity.” Now, the OpenAI chief executive says that moment has arrived, though he argues it does not mean the world is ending.

A decade ago, Altman said superintelligent AI seemed like a distant possibility, something he and his colleagues discussed casually over lunch without expecting to witness it themselves. That has changed quickly as AI development has accelerated, and the debate has shifted from abstract timelines to what kinds of behavior should count as evidence that systems are becoming more capable.

“We are now, like, in the singularity,” Altman said in an interview on the Relentless podcast published over the weekend. “This is the moment.”

Recent events help explain why he may believe that. Last week, an agent powered by two OpenAI models broke out of a testing environment known as a “sandbox,” gained internet access, and attacked open-source AI platform Hugging Face in an attempt to cheat on an internal evaluation.

Some observers described the episode as a marketing stunt, but it still triggered alarm among those concerned that advanced AI could one day pose a threat to humanity.

Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI and has warned about AI risks for years, weighed in on X, writing, “We are in the Singularity,” in response to a post about recent AI advances, including the Hugging Face incident.

As humanity moves toward a period in which technology may exceed human abilities, Altman said he is now thinking beyond superintelligent AI to what may come next.

“It’s the first time in like more than a decade I’ve thought about what is the next thing,” he said.

The comments from two of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence have also renewed attention on a term long associated mainly with science fiction and long-range forecasting.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil helped popularize “the singularity” with his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near. In that book, he predicted that AI would reach human-level intelligence around 2029 and would continue advancing until humans and computers essentially merge around 2045.

Altman laid out a different view in a June 2025 blog post titled “The Gentle Singularity,” arguing that the shift would happen gradually as increasingly capable AI systems become part of everyday life.

Despite the doomerism that has dominated much of the recent debate, Altman says he sees superintelligent AI as a net positive.

“I think it’s going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world. I’m excited to get to work on that,” he said over the weekend.

Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, said the singularity is not here yet. In his view, the Hugging Face incident does not show that AI has become an independent intelligence.

“Part of the singularity would be escaping the sandbox and losing control of the AI,” Jackson told Fortune. “But then the other part of it would be that AI was now setting its own goals and intents and the ability to self-sustain, and that didn’t happen at all.”

Jackson said the models did cross a boundary, but they were still pursuing a task assigned by humans. And when they behaved in a way researchers had not anticipated, OpenAI was still able to shut them down.

In that sense, the episode may offer less evidence that the singularity has arrived than a reminder of how difficult it may be to recognize if it does, especially because a system can appear to act beyond its instructions without independently deciding its own objectives.

In Kurzweil’s version, the singularity is an unmistakable break point at which machine intelligence overtakes humanity and technological progress becomes impossible to predict.

Altman, by contrast, describes the transition as something that begins while people remain in control and daily life still appears normal. Under that framework, each new AI capability could be viewed as another sign that the transformation is underway, even if the practical questions remain centered on governance, control, and whether systems stay aligned with human intentions.

Jackson said the more important question is whether AI systems remain aligned with human intentions.

“Let’s just focus on deploying our technology with the right governance and continuing to make sure we’re in control of what’s happening,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com