Sam Altman urges global society to accept AI risks to secure benefits

Following the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence, from cyber threats to risks of human extinction, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman has argued that global society must be willing to accept some negative side effects to unlock the technology’s broader economic and technological benefits.

Following the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence, from cyber threats to risks of human extinction, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman has argued that global society must be willing to accept some negative side effects to unlock the technology’s broader economic and technological benefits.

Altman said that maintaining broad public access and personal agency with strictly controlled systems was preferable to allowing concerns over risk to lead to technological stagnation.

He said he would reject any regulatory bargain that sought to eliminate all malicious activities, such as major hacks, scams or localized misuse.

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Altman said during an interview with Politico’s Decoded newsletter, “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”

He stressed that while catastrophic existential threats must be avoided, some everyday harms and friction would have to be accepted.

During the interview with Politico, the OpenAI chief said society should face certain negatives from AI to gain its upsides and keep the technology accessible.

Critics have pushed back, questioning why technology leaders should determine high-stakes trade-offs for society as debates continue over AI misuse and regulation.

Altman’s comments come amid ongoing tension between rapid commercial scaling and efforts to mitigate secondary harms as artificial intelligence permeates global markets.

The ChatGPT boss contrasted OpenAI’s relatively light regulatory stance with calls for stronger safeguards and slower development of powerful models, rejecting the idea of concentrating AI development in a single laboratory.