Altman warns AGI could end work and collapse the economy

A stark warning from the top of OpenAI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has issued one of his bluntest public warnings yet about the economic consequences of advanced AI. In a post on X on 25 April, Altman wrote that 'post-AGI, no one is going to work and the economy is going to collapse,' a remark that landed just two days after OpenAI launched GPT-5.5, its newest flagship model. The comment captures a deepening tension between the breakneck pace of AI development and the readiness of governments, businesses and labour markets to absorb the shock.

A joke with an edge

In the same post, Altman struck a lighter but telling note, claiming he was switching to polyphasic sleep because GPT-5.5 in Codex was so capable that he could no longer afford to sleep for long stretches. The quip underlined a paradox at the heart of the moment: the very tools designed to reduce human toil are, at least for those building them, intensifying the workload rather than easing it.

GPT-5.5 and the agentic leap

Released on 23 April to paid ChatGPT and Codex subscribers, GPT-5.5 has been pitched by OpenAI as a step change in agentic capability. The company says the model can plan multi-step tasks, use tools and verify its own output with significantly less human supervision. OpenAI President Greg Brockman called it 'a new class of intelligence' and 'a real step toward a new way of getting computer work done.'

Policy before prophecy

Altman's warning did not emerge from nowhere. Earlier in April, OpenAI published a 13-page policy paper titled 'Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age,' floating ideas such as a public wealth fund, pilot programmes for a four-day workweek without pay cuts, a robot tax, and shifting the tax burden from labour to capital. Critics have questioned whether such proposals are genuine reform or strategic positioning, with some describing the paper as cover for 'regulatory nihilism.'

A darkening backdrop

The remarks also arrive against a tense public backdrop. On 10 April, a man threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman's San Francisco home before approaching OpenAI's offices with incendiary devices, in an incident the FBI described as 'planned, targeted, and extremely serious.' Altman has acknowledged that anxiety around AI is 'warranted,' calling the moment the most significant societal transformation 'in a long time, possibly ever.'