hile new AI features, products, and models are launched every day, it may feel like the impact AI has on your everyday life isn't changing dramatically. OpenAI has coined a term for that disconnect, the "capability overhang," and understanding it may be a key to unlocking more AI value.
In a blog post titled “AI for self empowerment,” the AI lab defines the capability overhang as “the gap between what AI systems can now do and the value most people, businesses, and countries are actually capturing from them at scale.”
However, OpenAI said that accurately evaluating the capability overhang is challenging because helpful AI use cases can’t often be predicted, citing ChatGPT's early days as an example. Even though it wasn’t capable of doing much more than functioning as a question-and-answer engine, people found creative ways to apply it in their everyday lives. That challenge has only been exacerbated now that frontier AI models can take action and reason on much more challenging tasks, leaving OpenAI unable to predict exactly how it will be integrated into people’s lives.
As a result, the company says its people are using the tools that will actually help identify new use cases and better understand the capability overhang. Some of the company's predictions of the high-level outcomes include double-digit GDP growth, but it will require managing the capability overhang, which OpenAI says can be done in three ways:
- Providing people with credible data that clearly explains what is going on in the AI space.
- Working to ensure all people get equitable access to AI.
- Building tools that users can customize and access to lead to self-empowerment.