OpenAI CEO Says AI’s Benefits Are Worth ‘Bad Things Happening’

PYMNTS reports that Altman made the remarks as he outlined the philosophical differences between his company and the worldview held by rival AI startup Anthropic[1]. He told Politico, "I think there's a lot of daylight."[1]According to PYMNTS, Altman said he "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'"[1]. He argued that people would do "orders of magnitude more — good stuff than bad stuff."[1]PYMNTS reports that Altman called keeping AI in the hands of a single lab "a completely unacceptable trade-off" that runs counter to the "lighter-touch regulatory stance" backed by OpenAI[1]. RT reports that Altman also said he would not accept "the really catastrophic risks," including "a serious loss of control to AI."[3]Quartz reports that the policy distance between the two companies has narrowed in recent months[2]. Forbes reports that OpenAI disclosed six other incidents of "unexpected or concerning" behavior involving its models[4] last month.Fortune called the comments a tone shift from Altman[5], pointing out that in an earlier Fortune interview he had said a 10% risk of AI killing us all by the end of the decade is unacceptable[5]. Ron DeSantis said he had "no dice" with the idea that "a handful of tech oligarchs get to make that decision"[6] on safety.