Sam Altman compares his child speaking two words together to GPT 5.6 doing new math

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that his child putting two words together for the first time made him just as amazed as the time when GPT 5.6 "discovered" new math.

In Short

• Sam Altman says his older child combined two words for the first time
• He compared this to GPT-5.6 discovering new math
• Altman previously compared AI energy consumption with human energy use

Sam Altman has done it again. After claiming that humans, like AI, need a lot of energy and resources to grow and learn, the OpenAI CEO has compared the wonder of his own child’s speech to that of AI’s latest breakthrough.

On X, Altman wrote that his older child just put two words together for the first time. This, he says, made him just as excited as the time when GPT 5.6, the latest OpenAI model, did when it found new math. Sam Altman wrote, “Our older kid put two words together for the first time and I am approximately as amazed by this cognitive feat as I am by GPT-5.6 discovering new math.”

Sam Altman and Oliver Mulherin welcomed their first child, a baby boy, in February 2025. While the couple has not publicly shared when they welcomed a second child, as per Forbes, the two were expecting a baby sometime this year. Altman’s comments referring to “older kid” signals that the second child has now been born.

GPT 5.6 can discover new math?

OpenAI released GPT 5.6 models as part of a restricted preview last month following a request from the US government. The new models include Sol, Terra, and Luna. Altman has previously described the new models as a major step forward in capability and pricing efficiency.

While Sam Altman did not detail what new math GPT 5.6 may have discovered, it seems that the latest OpenAI models could have found a major breakthrough – something that for Altman may be as emotional as having his kid start putting words together.

While GPT 5.6 is available to a select group of companies at the time, it is rumoured that OpenAI may release it for all users later this week.

Though Altman’s comments were met with some divided reactions online. One user claimed that this only raised the bar as to what to expect from GPT 5.6. The user wrote, “Sam Altman just compared his child putting two words together for the first time to GPT-5.6 discovering new math. Expectations for what’s next couldn’t be any higher now.”

On the other hand, one user was rather concerned with this comparison. The person said, “What a horrifying sentence.”

While another person took a dig at Altman for comparing his kid to an AI model. The user added, “Baby spoke for the first time, Sam: ‘here's the benchmark on the XYZ scale of Baby vs GPT-5.6.’”

In February this year, Sam Altman had addressed concerns over the energy used to train AI models by comparing it to energy humans need. He said at the time, “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart."

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