Sam Altman tells Politico the world “should accept some harm from AI”

OpenAI chief Sam Altman says the gains from AI are worth some harm. He also says the tech should stay open to the public.

Altman made the comments in an interview with Politico for the first edition of Decoded. The new daily tech newsletter and podcast launches on Monday. TNW has not seen the full interview.

“We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency,” Altman told Politico.

He said he would not swap those gains for a promise of no hacks, scams or misuse. In his view, people will do far more good than bad with AI. But he said the world should not accept the worst risks, such as a serious loss of control to AI.

Altman also told Politico that OpenAI and Anthropic still differ significantly on AI rules. Some people think AI is so dangerous that one lab should hold it and share out the gains. He said he understood that view, but did not agree.

That approach, he said, would be “a completely unacceptable trade-off”.

In response, an Anthropic spokesperson told Politico that its proposed rules apply only to frontier models, the most advanced AI systems.

The interview comes three weeks after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay asking the industry to slow how fast it improves AI models. Altman backed that call the same day. He said OpenAI would also give outside testers the same access as staff.

According to Politico, the talk also covered the AI safety pact that tech leaders signed at the White House. It also touched on Trump’s order to rename AI “superintelligence.”

Meanwhile, OpenAI is one of four AI companies due to testify under oath at a New York City Council hearing on AI safety on Monday.