Ask most people what they fear about artificial intelligence and you hear the same list: scams, hacks, misuse. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, says the world should live with them. “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency,” he told Politico in an interview for Decoded, its new tech newsletter and podcast, which launched on Monday.
He was asked where he parts ways with Anthropic and its chief executive, Dario Amodei. “I think there’s a lot of daylight,” Altman said. He added that the lighter-touch regulation OpenAI favors “comes with an accepting of the fact that some bad things are going to happen as society figures out the resilience.”
What he would not trade
Altman said he would turn down a bargain that guaranteed no major hacks, no misuse and zero scams, because he expects people to do “orders of magnitude” more good than harm with the technology. There is a limit, though. He does not accept the worst risks, such as a serious loss of control over AI systems.
He also took on the argument that AI is so dangerous one lab should hold it and decide how the gains are shared. He said he understood why people believe that, but called the trade-off “completely unacceptable.” An Anthropic spokesperson answered that its proposed rules apply only to frontier models, the most advanced systems.
The two companies have moved closer in recent months, Politico noted. OpenAI has backed tougher state laws and a House proposal that would require top AI companies to bring in outside safety evaluators. Altman backed Amodei’s call, made about three weeks earlier, for the industry to slow the pace at which it improves its models.
The reaction
The Guardian reported that the comments drew an instant backlash. Florida governor Ron DeSantis rejected the idea that “a handful of tech oligarchs get to make that decision” for everyone else; his state last week asked a judge to bar OpenAI from building new models without guardrails approved by third parties. Gary Marcus, an AI skeptic and professor emeritus at New York University, said Altman was “saying the quiet part out loud: suck it up, so you can make us rich and powerful.”
The timing was awkward. One of OpenAI’s own safety experts, David Robinson, had resigned over the weekend, saying the companies building this technology “aren’t being nearly careful enough.” Last week Donald Trump, Altman and Amodei signed a light-touch pact at the White House, with the president saying he wanted the companies to “self-police”.
OpenAI is among four AI companies due to testify under oath on Monday at a New York City Council hearing on AI safety.
Sources
- Sam Altman tells Politico the world “should accept some harm from AI”
- 'Some Harm Is an Acceptable Price for AI's Benefits': OpenAI's Sam Altman Says
- Sam Altman to Decoded: The world should accept some bad things happening – POLITICO
- Accept 'bad things' in return for benefits of AI, says Sam Altman – The Guardian
