Amid the AI slowdown debate, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reportedly defended keeping the technology broadly accessible, saying the benefits of AI may outweigh the risks that come with its widespread use. Altman also pointed to a major difference between OpenAI and rival AI company Anthropic over how the technology should be regulated.
Speaking to Politico’s technology-focused newsletter Decoded, Altman said some negative consequences of AI would have to be accepted if people are to benefit from the technology and have greater control over how they use it. “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency,” Altman said.
Sam Altman On AI Risks And Public Access
Reportedly, Altman argued against an approach where access to highly capable AI systems is tightly controlled by a small number of organisations in an attempt to prevent misuse. He said he disagreed with the view that the risks of increasingly powerful AI are so serious that only a single lab should control the technology and decide how its benefits are distributed.
“I disagree, but I understand the perspective of people who are like, ‘This technology is going to get so powerful, and it’s so dangerous, that a single lab in San Francisco should have it and make sure nothing bad happens, and kind of figure out how to dole out the benefits,'” Altman said.
He described such a compromise as unacceptable and said it would go against OpenAI’s preference for a lighter regulatory approach. The OpenAI CEO called that “a completely unacceptable trade-off” that runs counter to the “lighter-touch regulatory stance” backed by OpenAI.
OpenAI And Anthropic Have Different Views On Regulation
Altman also acknowledged a clear difference between OpenAI and Anthropic when it comes to AI regulation. “There’s a fundamental difference in worldview between OpenAI and Anthropic on AI regulation,” Altman said, adding, “I think there’s a lot of daylight.”
The comments come as AI companies face increasing pressure to address the risks associated with more capable models while continuing to develop and deploy them. Altman said he would not support trying to eliminate every possible negative consequence associated with AI. “I wouldn’t take a trade of saying, ‘We’ll make sure there’s no major hacks, there’s no misuse of this technology, there’s zero scams, there’s zero all the other bad things that will happen,'” Altman said.
Altman’s latest comments amid an ongoing debate over how quickly frontier AI systems should be developed. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay in September calling on AI companies to “pace the frontier”. His argument centred on slowing the development of increasingly powerful AI systems so that safety measures and governance can keep up with their capabilities.
The OpenAI CEO has also publicly endorsed the idea of pacing frontier AI development, even as OpenAI and Anthropic continue to differ on aspects of AI regulation. This debate has also extended inside AI companies. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned in September and said people developing AI believe it “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
