Sam Altman says AI will make ‘bad things’ happen. Exhibit A: needless death | Moustafa Bayoumi

Bayoumi's column quotes Altman as saying that "we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency [to use it],"[2] words Altman said on Politico's new Decoded podcast.Common Dreams reports that Altman made the comment when asked where his company differs from rival Anthropic, whose CEO, Dario Amodei, has called for guardrails[3].Bayoumi writes that Altman's wording "makes it sound like AI's failures mistakenly create innocent, minor problems or even silly little episodes"[2]. He writes that an unidentified AI chatbot used by the US military decided that a Chinese ship in Middle Eastern waters was carrying components of a nuclear weapons program[2]. Citing CNN, he says US planes took off on an interception mission[2] before anyone spotted the chatbot's mistakes.Bayoumi also cites the New Yorker's report that OpenAI "is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering at a potential valuation of a trillion dollars"[2]. He concludes that the bad things "only happen to other people."[2] Common Dreams reports that Patrick Gaspard of the Center for American Progress called Altman's statement "freaking insane"[3], and that Senator Bernie Sanders asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman precisely what "bad things" the world should accept[4].Tom's Guide reports that Altman also argued that with lighter regulation, "people will do tremendously — orders of magnitude more — good stuff than bad stuff."[5]