Wojciech Zaremba – Twórca ChatGPT w Kluczborku | Spotkanie OpenAI & AI 1 sierpnia 2025 w hali OSiR

I would like to warmly welcome everyone to a special event, a meeting with Wojciech Zaręba, an artificial intelligence genius, co-founder of the Open AI company, who comes from Kluczbork. History has come full circle. Today Wojtek San Francisco returns to our family home. I warmly welcome you all. I welcome the invited guests, representatives of the district, municipal and provincial government authorities. I would like to extend a particularly warm welcome to the family of Wojtek Zaręba. Great people who support him every step of the way. I also warmly welcome his parents, who shaped his dreams here in Kluczorek. Hello to the friends and teachers I met along the way. And most importantly, I would like to warmly welcome Mr. Wojtek Zaręba and Dr. Maciej Kawecki, who will lead today's meeting.

Ladies and gentlemen, before we start talking, we have prepared a surprise for Mr. Wojtek and for you. I invite you to a unique screening of a film from Wojtek Zaręba's childhood. This is a unique material that will allow you to look at its beginnings from the perspective of family memories. It is a sentimental journey to the times when dreams were just being born.

Some kind of smoke powder was made and ignited. Wojtek invented a bomb and this bomb exploded in the middle school locker room. He soiled all the students' jackets in their cubicles. He had very kind ladies here in Luczbork at the pharmacy and at the Sanitary Inspectorate. And these experiments did not always end well. He dragged various things down to the basement for us and everything was fine until the explosion occurred. It's good that he had glasses, because he would have lost his sight. For me he is just little Wojtuś. Always beloved little Wojtuś. And when I come across an article from time to time, God, this is impossible, this is unbelievable. He was constantly searching for something. He had a question mark written all over his face. He kept asking. What he heard once, he remembered. He was able to put in a lot of work, from what I remember, he devoted 4 to 5 hours a day to mathematics, preparing for the Olympiad, he didn't have to get A's in everything. I never thought that Wojtek would be quoted more often today than the classics. When you talk to him and talk about numbers and programs, he says that he simply sees it.

I led the pedagogical council that sent Wojtek to Warsaw for gifted children. Wojtek returned from Belweder, where President Kwaśniewski awarded him a scholarship for talented children. For dear Mrs. Szot from Wojtek Zaręba. When it comes to mathematics, I quickly realized that his mind was far ahead of the program. Therefore, I decided that he would partially carry out the tasks independently. At that time, the first-grade class had four exercises for the entire year and he completed these exercises, i.e. the first-grade program, in the first half of the year. In the second half of the year, we had already completed the second-grade curriculum, but then I consulted with Wojtek's mother, the school principal, and the counseling center, and it indeed turned out that his mind was beyond that of a seven-year-old, and I received permission to conduct individual math classes, but in third grade. During breaks between classes, Wojtuś was very eager to approach me, talk, and tell me about his interests in computer science, mathematics, and especially chemistry, and he also conducts experiments in the basement of his house. Then, a little scared, I decided to put him in touch with our chemistry teacher. We met after classes. Well, the result was that, as a sixth-grade primary school student, he won the elimination round in Kruszbork and qualified for the chemistry olympiad for middle school students and in this olympiad he became a finalist. In middle school, these successes were annual, so the title of finalist in chemistry olympiads appeared. He came to me during a break and asked me if he would like to learn programming. During the next break we sat down at the computer and he actually wrote three lines of program text and the word Wojtek appeared on the screen. We took part in one of the student program olympiads. Wojtek was so surprised when he took second place, because his PowerPoint presentation won. Wojtek, I remember, started his presentation. I don't deal with [ __ ]. He started talking about fractals, he started talking about different kinds of loops. The result was that no questions were asked of him from the audience. Did Wojtek surprise me? Of course he surprised me, because some of the solutions, some of the algorithms he wrote were very innovative. They were constantly poking a stick into an anthill. An example of this would be the lesson with Mr. Turczyn. It was a math lesson. When you entered the classroom, your first impression might be that it was chaos. Meanwhile, they were just discussing. They argued, exchanged opinions. Mr. Turczyn presented some thesis which they refuted or confirmed. Yes, they were very creative children, all of them and very thoughtful. During one of the classes he tried to convince me that parallel worlds exist and he could explain to me how, in his opinion, they function in our human world. As for who he inherited his traits from, i.e. his mathematical inclinations, then without boasting, I think it was me. I was the class teacher and math teacher of the class that Wojtek attended. When he was in second grade, during the holidays, he came to me and said: 'I'm moving to Wrocław until the 14th.' Wojtek went, arranged it, and they accepted him. He also completed the third grade in Wrocław at the age of 14. There, he couldn't get along with his teacher, who was a Polish teacher. I think it's good that he came back to us from Wrocław, knowing that the Polish language does not belong to their world. My role will be to not interfere and allow students to pursue their passions. I prepared him for various professions, we worked together on math lessons, basically it doesn't matter. He had an individual teaching schedule, so he just absorbed everything, he was perfectly prepared and preparing these lessons often took longer than preparing all my other lessons, given the experience I had as a teacher. His great dream was to participate in the international mathematics olympiad, which took place in Vietnam in 2007. And to go there you had to take one of the first six places in the national Olympics. Well, one day before the final of these Olympiads, I had the opportunity to talk to an outstanding math teacher from one of the best top high schools in Poland, and he said that the passports to Hanoi had already been distributed, so there was no point in counting on the fact that my Wojtek would also fit in there. Well, it turned out that he took second place in that Polish general Olympiad. He won a silver medal at the Olympics in Vietnam and his path to all technical studies was open and he decided that at the University of Warsaw there was a program where they only accepted Olympians and he applied there and of course he got in without any problems. Later he decided that he would be in Paris at Ekol Poltechnik and defended his master's thesis there, because he had done his internship in the United States, at Nvidia, at Google. He came to the conclusion that he would pursue his doctorate in the United States at the University of New York, and where a doctorate normally takes an average of 5 years to complete, he finished, completed, and defended it in two and a half years. He usually came home for the holidays. We met many times for such a casual chat. I remember this dice he had, which he rolled and convinced me it made sense. Honestly, I didn't have to look for the meaning of it. I was in the middle of working on artificial intelligence, when it came to controlling cars, then on improving the kitchen. And one Sunday we arranged to meet in the city, we went to the Borek key to sit somewhere, have a coffee, he showed me the first foundations of artificial intelligence on his computer. He showed me how many servers to connect to, how it works, and how to ask questions. Somewhere in these various rankings, Elon Musk started to appear, and finally, he wanted to create a team of probably 10 nine. He himself indicated who he invited to join the team. Among others was Wojtek. And they started to act. He moved from New York to San Francisco. He still works there as one of the founders of Open Wojtek. He is independent and has his own opinion. It's not like someone is imposing their opinion on him. He has his own way of thinking, but he is very emotional from the beginning. A few years ago I received a kind of card from Wojtek, that is, a copied photo of us together and a text. Dear mommy, thank you for giving birth to me. And so on, for which I thank you. I will read a note that I received from Wojtek as an adult. I remember the moment when I got up from my chair in the classroom, walked up to the teacher and poked her belly with my finger. Thank you for giving me extra math problems back then. Wojtuś was and is a sensitive man. Let me read it. I hope he will forgive me. Hello. This is a poem from Wojtas, a great fool who often interrupted the lady and did not want to listen to her. But now, on the day of saying goodbye to this poem, I apologize to you deeply and wish you all the best. When you read this story, please remember our supposed peeing, how we climbed out the window to your vigil, or when I changed the home page to the explosive page. This is the end of my poem, because I'm going to eat something. Pierogi. Wojtek, I wish you only beautiful and good days. Be happy in the kingdom you create. I am very glad that this is the world that has been introduced here. However, it's also a great thing that you don't need the most top schools in Poland, you can also develop here in a place like Kruszbork. Now, if I were to appeal to young people, I would like to say that they live in a beautiful country, a country that is developing. Stay in Poland, work in our country, of course with the help of experienced people who play a very important role in the world. I am proud to have had such a student. He has surpassed his master and I am very happy about that. I wish him all the best, much success, and I hope that his work will contribute to us living in a better world. Regards, Wojtek. Wojtek, I wish you that your family will be happy with you and that you will be happy with your family, that your son will be your joy and your wife too, that you will enjoy spending time with him and be happy with him, and that they will give us even more offspring. Our sons went out into the world so that they wouldn't get lost in this world, so that they would be together on the occasion of various celebrations, family celebrations, holidays, so that they wouldn't forget about each other, so that they would be together.

Wojciech, in this film there was a sentence that from an early age you had a question mark written on your face. It remains so to this day.

What is the most important question mark for you today, Wojtek? If you had to choose one.

What is alignment faking?

Once again, how is this before alignment faking, i.e. compliance compliance, compliance, compliance, compliance, because the point is why why am I asking about this too. Because today I want to show a painting by Wojtek Zaręba. Not from the past, but from the present. Now we have, let me clarify this question for our audience. Today, one of the greatest challenges of such fundamental developments in artificial intelligence is that complex models can carry out their own missions, which are in some sense detached from humans. Can I be more clear and explain what I mean?

Has artificial intelligence quietly become an intelligence equal to human intelligence?

Why am I asking you this? I'm asking you in this specific context, so that I may play a bad cop now, but to very, very vividly show how fundamental it is today to stay up to date with AI developments. I met several times with Jeffrey Hinton, who you know very well, this year's Nobel Prize winner, a father, one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence. He actually says that man will become the second, not the first, intelligence on Earth. Whether we agree with this or not is a secondary matter for me, but if we were to assume that artificial intelligence is equal to human intelligence in the implementation of first one task and then a complex number of tasks, then in the history of humanity that you mention, we have only had one case where two intelligences were at the top of the food chain and one ceased to exist. And that was the situation where we had Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. The question is, can we use this metaphor to describe today's reality and the situation of people who say: 'I'm saying no to artificial intelligence, no, I won't learn, I won't educate myself, I won't use AI tools. Could they end up like those Neanderthals? Would I rather? Or are we entering a period of time where artificial intelligence can help a given person 5%, 10%, 20%, but this will increase. It will be that a given person will be able to do something that 10 people can do. We will have companies where a small number of people can create a multi-billion company.

What do you think the next few years of artificial intelligence development will look like? What will we get from the world? I'm not asking about Open AI, I don't want to ask about what awaits us from the Open AI company. These are your inner secrets. I'm interested in, I ask a little about products, but in isolation from Open AI. Will we be looking at multi-task AI, meaning we'll suddenly have agents that will manage our computers, help us book flights and hotels, or maybe the world will move towards scientific AI, meaning we'll be creating copies of Alpha Fold and Deep Mind, also awarded a Nobel Prize this year. What can we expect from the development of artificial intelligence in the coming years? I'll answer this question, but I'd also like to share a story from a friend. A friend had a very complicated relationship with his wife. The birth. It was a 17-hour labor, quite risky. There were even two shifts of doctors during the labor. They didn't quite agree on what to do. My wife was given all sorts of medications, and during the labor, he was constantly with his phone, entering everything into the best Open AI model, and the model made various suggestions. This colleague made these suggestions to the doctor. First, the doctor laughed at him, and after a while, you found it on Google. 'That's interesting.' And it happened that the doctor actually tried several of these suggestions. One of them was to do an ultrasound, and it turned out the umbilical cord was around the baby's neck. Yes. Now, it's unclear; perhaps the doctor himself would have come to that conclusion, but it's quite incredible, if this technology can help in such situations at this point. And that's not the only story. I also heard the story of a woman who went to the doctors and wasn't feeling well. The doctor told her: 'Maybe you should change your diet.' She went home, ordered some lab tests, and also talked to the model. She sent them to the model. The model asked her if she had the lab tests. She sent the tests, and the model wrote in capital letters that she should go to the hospital immediately for emergency treatment. She was a bit surprised. Maybe this was some kind of scam. She looked at the lab test. At the very bottom, it said it hadn't been checked by a doctor yet, and it was the weekend, so it wouldn't even be checked for another few days. She went, took a taxi, went to the hospital, and they tested her on the spot and told her: 'It's true that her platelet count is dropping to zero.' If she hadn't come, she would have been dead in a few hours. And the doctors were shocked, because normally people who are at their best don't go to the doctor. It's getting to the point where he actually loses consciousness and needs to go to the doctor. And you asked her how, how did you know to come? And she says: 'I actually talked to this model, and this model suggested it to me, and then the doctor said, 'Well, in this situation, I support this artificial intelligence.' So I think what do these stories say about the future? Do these stories say there will be a transformation of medical services? It's true that we can be definitely healthier, and I'm very

Wojtek, and you'll ask me about the fields. I told you, I only told you about medicine.

I have two final questions for you before we give the floor to our audience. The first is whether, in your opinion, artificial intelligence should be a mandatory subject in school?

That's true. What can we build? What great things do we have? Yes, we have a Polish white-tailed eagle. We have many Polish things. Well, I wanted to ask you at the end about Poland. Because we did create a language model, a rather large white-tailed eagle, which, despite everything, is hard to compete with your ChatGPT. What about Poland? Is it? Yes, I was thinking, have we already lost this race in some sense?

Are you saying that we haven't been successful in this competition yet?

Thank you for this meeting. I've been feeling the pressure for 10 minutes to give the audience a chance. This is absolutely the time. Ladies and gentlemen, a very inspiring meeting, but I promised you there would be questions from the audience. It's amazing that you came here to meet locally, and not just at large conferences. Thank you. On behalf of everyone, I wanted to ask in detail, but this is a large conference. I see it more as a meeting. I wanted to ask in detail about the aspect you mentioned about clinical trials, that artificial intelligence will somehow accelerate it. Do you see how exactly this can be accelerated, considering that these human trials are now such a total standard? Are there several elements?

Please.

Good morning, Damian Czajka, sound designer, composer. It's very nice to meet you, and I've enjoyed listening to all these conferences here. Also, the presenter. It's a pleasure to watch the channel. So thank you for your professional handling of this conversation. I also have a question about building. Building here in Poland. I have an idea for a startup to create libraries for feeding AI algorithms, for feeding quite specialized algorithms that would analyze sound or create sound, for medical applications, for security applications, even, unfortunately, military issues. And above all, for entertainment, the gaming industry, the video industry. What specifically would I like to create? Very, very extensive libraries that take into account all possible articulations of sound intensity. Recording at very high frequencies, and currently the highest possible, i.e., 384 kHz. Recordings on special measurement microphones up to 100 kHz, much higher than the human ear can hear at 20 kHz, because by resampling this sound to our hearing level, we obtain extraordinary cosmic sounds, which today we can treat as people from the past seeing glass. My question is, where should we approach such a startup? Should the model be open source, meaning shared with other structures that create models that would like to gain access to such sound databases so they can have them open source, or should we create a business model or a mix of these models? Where exactly should we look for investors? Where would you say is the best place to take the project?

We're asking you this. Um, Wojtek, I represent the National Revenue Administration and I wanted to tell you that we're very proud of you, because Wojtek, even the National Revenue Administration likes you. Because you're a scientist, you're a visionary, but above all, you're a wonderful person guided by values and for whom the well-being of humanity is important. And my question concerns the possibility of implementing solutions of such an individual model in our national tax administration, and it's not just about communication with our clients, but also about whether we all want to. I think yes, I think yes, because it's not just about communication with our clients, but precisely so that we can... We should create a whole so that we are all happy, so that our customers and our taxes remain the answer. Please or thank you,

Is this a government institution or not?

I don't know how much time I have left for questions. Last, last. I think the last question. You can sit in the front row here, because so many times. Ladies and gentlemen, there could be thousands of questions. This conversation is very inspiring. I have to keep an eye on the time. Mr. Wojtek's time is very valuable. His family is also waiting, so here and there, and we move on to the next point.

Wojtek, first of all, congratulations on your passion, talent, and your entire story. You mentioned, Maciek mentioned Poland, Bielik. The room responded with smiles. And I'd like to ask you about your opinion on the role of local language models and the work of those people sitting here in the fourth row, because they are part of the team that is creating Bielik, the Polish Bielik, completely free of charge. Raise your hands, where you are sitting. Yes. And I'd like to ask you if you could share not only your opinion on these roles, but also a few words of encouragement and positive energy for these people.

That was the plan, of course. Is it really possible to look at it, and I don't know if Wojtek even knows that Bielik is a social act. Great. People did it without any remuneration.

Jarosław M, Technology and Science Park in Opole. Thank you to the organizers, but especially to the gentlemen, for a very interesting and pleasant conversation. However, thank you very much, Wojtek, for what you said at the very beginning, that you're fighting for this in Open, so that the program operates legally, that is, within certain limits. But what happens if every model has certain boundary conditions? Yes, what happens if this model begins to slip beyond the boundary conditions and moves towards the dark side? Yes, we say great, you're presenting these elements that serve humanity, yes, but can't these things be used against humans? Is this technology so broad that it's practically certain that it will also be used against tech, against humans?

Thank you very much, Mr. Wojtek, Mr. Maciej, for being so inspiring. I just wanted to add one more word at the very end: I've been watching Wojciech for two days, spending time with him, and first of all, I see, because we've known each other for a while now, I see his enormous evolution, and that he's paying attention even more than before. I'm focusing on this human factor, but I also wanted to share a reflection of my own: I organize a lot of different events and I haven't yet encountered a story where, in such a short time, such a huge number of people were interested in meeting anyone, especially considering that when organizing the meeting at the Jagiellonian University, we set the strictest possible criteria, meaning only winners and finalists, only and exclusively from STEM Olympiads, and only and exclusively from this year. And despite this, we managed to gather an audience of 600 people in a few minutes. So I told Wojciech that probably in a year and a half we would organize a meeting for talented Polish people at the National Stadium. So, Wojciech, I wanted to thank you very much for these two days. I think it has a very big impact on Poland. I don't think you can even imagine how much. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll add to the Kluczbork thread. How we started distributing free tickets in two hours at the Bajka cinema, how we increased it to 500 people in the OSIR hall, and the exit tickets were already sold out. Ladies and gentlemen, we now move on to the ceremonial part. We would like to honor Mr. Wojtek Zaremba with a 'Kluczbork' tower. I invite the mayor of Kluczbork, Jarosław Kielar, deputy mayor Roman Kamiński, and the chairman of the city council, Mr. Piotr Sitnik, to the stage.

[Applause]

Wojtek, ladies and gentlemen, dear family, dear residents of Kluczbork, but residents of all of Poland. You influence the life of Poland and the world. And here in Kluczbork, we have a symbolic tower. This tower, which we are giving to you for the second time. Two years ago, your parents received it, one might say for the JPA chat. Now I would like to give you this tower not only for your education, but for your heart. You showed how big a heart you have last year by donating a considerable amount of money for the development of education at the high school you attended, which is just across the street. And importantly, you also donated money to young people who will want to educate themselves, develop themselves, and perhaps create new works. For all of us. For this great promotion for Kluczbork, we would like to present a symbolic tower, and I hope it will find its place somewhere in San Francisco. Thank you and congratulations.

The mayor mentioned the high school from which Wojtek Zaremba graduated, and the Complex of Higher Secondary Schools would also like to present a special distinction to one of its most outstanding graduates. I invite representatives of the first high school in Kluczbork, headed by Principal Joanna Piłat.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the entire school community of the Complex of Higher Secondary Schools in Kluczbork, I would like to present Wojciech Zaremba, our graduate (you already know he's here), with a special award. It's the Adamus Award. For several years, we have been presenting this award to students who have distinguished themselves not only with their grades, but above all, with their activity and contributions to the school and local community. Now is a somewhat historic moment, because for the first time, I will be presenting this award not to a student. It will be in the 'Friend' category. I would like to do this in the company of Mr. Piotr Ostrowski, who represents the Mickiewicz Educational Association. This association implements projects that we can implement thanks to our cooperation with Wojciech Zaremba. Mr. Piotr Pawlikowski is also with us; you've already seen him in the film today. He's a mathematics teacher and Wojtek Zaremba's tutor at our school. Today, he's also representing the jury of the start-up scholarship funded by Wojciech Zaremba for our most outstanding graduates who are starting their journey to higher education. I regret that Headmistress Krystyna Włażewska, who initiated the collaboration with Mr. Wojciech Zaremba, is not with us today, but I am convinced that she continues to patronize this joint venture. And to make this even clearer, so that you can better understand why Wojciech Zaremba is receiving today's award, I would like to read the text of the diploma that will be attached to the statuette. By decision of the jury of the Adamus Award, the title and Adamus statuette in the category of 'Friend of the Adamus Secondary School Complex' Mr. Wojciech Zaremba receives the Mickiewicz Award in Kluczbork. For being an inspiration to young people, promoting the school's good name, and providing genuine support in creating a space where talented students can spread their wings. Congratulations and a big round of applause.

[Music]

I did my best. I think this meeting was, above all, an inspiration, and for the young people, hope that you don't have to be from Warsaw, New York, or Paris to achieve success. All you need is a small town, a good family, good friends, and good teachers who will guide your genius in the direction Mr. Wojtek took. Thank you for your attention. See you soon.