Sam Altman confident AI industry can handle safety risks
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OpenAI CEO Sam Atlman talks with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on Tuesday at Dreamforce in San Francisco. Photo: ina Fried/Axios
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told a conference Tuesday that while people were right to be afraid of the risks of AI, he was confident that the industry would be able to develop the technology safely.
Why it matters: His comments come as he and other AI leaders have been seeking to demonstrate that the industry understands the risks even as they acknowledge that the rapid trajectory of AI makes the stakes that much higher.
- Altman, along with other AI leaders, has echoed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's recent call for slowing the pace of AI development.
Driving the news: Speaking at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, Altman said that "some degree of accidents are unavoidable with new technology across the industry."
- He noted how safe air travel has become as a result of accident reporting and learning and regulation by federal agencies.
- "I think probably, regrettably, accidents with any new technology are unavoidable, and we should have a great culture of transparent reporting about them."
- Companies should be prepared "to slow down or stop if we get to a point where we can't" proceed safely, Altman said.
The big picture: AI has rapidly advanced from barely conversational chatbots to systems that can transform enterprise work, write complex software and solve difficult mathematical problems — making once-abstract risks feel increasingly immediate.
- "The world is right to be afraid of this," Altman told the conference.
Between the lines: Altman pointed to social media as a cautionary example. He said social platforms have produced real benefits, but their effects on society — particularly young people — have not been "only positive."
- He singled out short-form video as an example of a technology that is not inherently bad but can still be dangerous.
- "I don't think short-form video is inherently evil, but I do think it's dangerous," Altman said, adding that responsibility is shared among parents, companies and governments.
- Altman noted that he likes to unwind with a few such videos but said he would not let his kids watch them.
Zoom out: Likening AI technology to getting "fire from the gods," the OpenAI CEO said that the world is on the precipice of a third wave, after chatbots and coding agents, in which AI can proactively carry out work on people's behalf.
- "We have only scratched the surface of figuring out how to build great products that really make people more capable, more powerful."
Yes, but: He noted that there is a lot of inertia in human work and that it will take years for the technology to be fully distributed.
