OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has warned that the public is justified in fearing the growing power of artificial intelligence companies, while expressing confidence that the industry can develop the technology safely, reports a Qazinform News Agency correspondent.
Speaking with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Altman said some AI developers could acquire excessive economic and social influence.
“I think the world is right to be afraid of this,” Altman said, warning that powerful companies could “exert undue influence on the economy” and impose particular worldviews on the public.
He nevertheless argued that AI developers should be trusted to act responsibly.
“The world should trust that we are going to do the right thing because it’s the right thing and because we feel the magnitude of this,” he said.
Altman added that companies must keep their monitoring, alignment and safety systems ahead of rapidly advancing AI capabilities. If that becomes impossible, they should be prepared to “slow down or stop.”
In a separate post on X, Altman identified two major dangers.
“First, we could lose control of the future to AI. This is unacceptable; we are unapologetically on Team Humanity, and AI must always serve people,” he wrote.
The second risk, he said, was an excessive concentration of power, potentially allowing a person, company, laboratory or country to impose its worldview on others.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang offered a different perspective at Dreamforce, arguing that AI safety was primarily “an engineering problem” rather than a matter requiring new legislation.
“Run as fast as you can, but if at any time you feel the institution is not in control, take a ,” Huang said.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that OpenAI said it had solved a decades-old mathematical problem in just 88 hours using a new AI model and approximately 10,000 AI agents.