Sam Altman reportedly outlined three possible endgames for superintelligence, including one where a single company becomes powerful enough to shut every rival out.

According to The Information, he described three paths to OpenAI staff:

- An international watchdog, modeled on the atomic energy agency, that enforces AI safety standards.

- A CERN-style organization where the major AI labs effectively combine their work under one body.

- One developer achieves AI that can improve itself, gains overwhelming economic power, and uses it to “melt everyone else’s GPUs.”

Altman explicitly rejected the third scenario: "Obviously I think that one’s terrible." But he also reportedly told staff that OpenAI cannot afford to lose ground to competitors.

Increasingly, realistic scenarios are being envisioned, driven by the fact that AI is gaining such momentum and potential that global coordination is becoming necessary.