{"slug": "chatgpt-boss-sam-altman-reveals-the-two-ways-ai-progress-could-go-very-badly", "title": "ChatGPT boss Sam Altman reveals the two ways AI progress ‘could go very badly’", "summary": "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned in posts on X that AI progress 'could go very badly' if the industry fails to avoid two outcomes: losing control of AI's future and allowing too much concentration of power in one person, company, or country. Altman said 'alignment and safety techniques' must stay ahead of model capabilities and that avoiding both threats requires 'walking a narrow middle path.' His comments followed Anthropic safety researcher Jacob Coxon's resignation and public warning that AI companies were 'racing straight to self-improving superintelligence,' after which Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged frontier AI companies to slow development, drawing agreement from Elon Musk and Altman, while US President Donald Trump said 'whoever wins AI, wins.'", "body_md": "[ChatGPT](https://metro.co.uk/tag/chatgpt/) boss Sam Altman has warned that the future of AI could go ‘very badly’ if the technology’s rapid progress continues to be developed.\n\nThe OpenAI CEO shared his concerns in a series of posts on the [social media](https://metro.co.uk/tag/social-media/) platform X, saying there were two outcomes the industry ‘must avoid’.\n\nAltman said: ‘First, we could lose control of the future of AI. That is unacceptable. We are unapologetically on Team Humanity and AI must always serve people.’\n\nThe 41-year-old continued by saying that ‘alignment and safety techniques’ must stay ahead of progress in model capabilities.\n\n‘Second, we could end up in a world with too much concentration of power,’ he added.\n\n‘If an extraordinarily powerful AI is used by one person or company to impress their worldview onto everyone else, the results could be extremely dystopian.’\n\nAltman said that avoiding these two threats requires ‘walking a narrow middle path; for example, one country could gain too much power. Another example is one lab ending up with too much power’.\n\nAltman’s warning comes after researcher [Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/09/anthropic-safety-researcher-jacob-coxon-quits-claims-ai-kill-humans-29568407/) – the company behind the chatbot Claude – and publicly warned that artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI were ‘racing straight to self-improving superintelligence’.\n\nCoxon claimed [AI companies were ‘gambling with our lives’](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/10/former-ai-worker-says-technology-kill-us-29578407/) and urged the public not to underestimate the technology.\n\nHe argued that future AI systems could become capable of hacking systems, transforming industries and acquiring significant power and resources.\n\nCoxon also claimed that people building AI ‘earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade’ – a description of the industry’s private concerns, rather than an established prediction.\n\nIn the wake of his comments, [Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei urged ‘frontier’ artificial intelligence companies to slow down their development of the tech](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/13/elon-musk-backs-calls-slow-ai-development-amid-extinction-fears-29597142/).\n\nResponding to his essay, [Elon Musk](https://metro.co.uk/tag/elon-musk/) said that ‘Dario is right’, while Altman said: ‘I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.\n\n‘This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.\n\n‘Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We’ll have more to share soon.’\n\n[US](https://metro.co.uk/tag/usa/) President [Donald Trump](https://metro.co.uk/tag/donald-trump/), however, took a different view.\n\nSpeaking to the media, he said that ‘whoever wins AI, wins’, igniting talks of a race with [China](https://metro.co.uk/tag/china/).\n\nHe also criticised industry figures for being ‘negative’ around the technology’s future.\n\nMORE: [Everyone’s doing the 80s social media trend — but it’s a dangerous move](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/11/everyones-80s-social-media-trend-a-dangerous-move-29585232/?ico=more_text_links)\n\nMORE: [Someone tried to develop biological weapons using Claude](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/11/someone-tried-develop-biological-weapons-using-claude-29584475/?ico=more_text_links)\n\nMORE: [AI ‘presents risk to UK security’ after whistleblower says it could ‘wipe out humans’](https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/10/andy-burnham-speaks-ai-researcher-warns-tech-wipe-out-humanity-29578261/?ico=more_text_links)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chatgpt-boss-sam-altman-reveals-the-two-ways-ai-progress-could-go-very-badly", "canonical_source": "https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/14/chatgpt-boss-sam-altman-reveals-two-ways-ai-progress-could-go-badly-29602463/", "published_at": "2026-09-14 08:09:11+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-14 09:06:39.368635+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Sam Altman", "OpenAI", "ChatGPT", "Anthropic", "Jacob Coxon", "Dario Amodei", "Elon Musk", "Donald Trump"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chatgpt-boss-sam-altman-reveals-the-two-ways-ai-progress-could-go-very-badly", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chatgpt-boss-sam-altman-reveals-the-two-ways-ai-progress-could-go-very-badly.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chatgpt-boss-sam-altman-reveals-the-two-ways-ai-progress-could-go-very-badly.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chatgpt-boss-sam-altman-reveals-the-two-ways-ai-progress-could-go-very-badly.jsonld"}}