Sam Altman: "We Must Accept Some Risks for the Benefits of AI"

Distance from Anthropic's Regulatory Approach

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has stated that it is necessary to accept a certain level of risk and side effects in order to enjoy the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and maintain human agency.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, arrived in Korea on October 1 last year through the Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center (SGBAC) in Gangseo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News.

On October 4 (local time), during an interview on "Decoded," a technology podcast hosted by the U.S. political media outlet Politico, CEO Altman was asked about the differences in regulatory perspectives between OpenAI and Anthropic. He emphasized, "There is a significant difference in the positions of our two companies," and added, "We believe that in order to enjoy the benefits of AI technology and preserve human agency, we must acknowledge and accept that some negative events will occur."

He stated, "We do not accept the stance of 'ensuring that there are no significant hacking incidents, that AI technology is never misused, that there is not a single case of fraud, and that no other negative incidents ever occur.' The reason is that I believe people will achieve many more good outcomes—dozens of times more—than bad ones." However, he stressed that this does not mean humanity should accept catastrophic risks such as completely losing control over AI.

He also mentioned criticism from some quarters labeling the regulatory proposal by Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, as an example of "regulatory capture." This refers to concerns that targeted companies may advocate for regulations that favor themselves, thereby blocking competition. However, according to Politico, Anthropic has countered these claims by stating that its proposed regulatory measures are intended to apply only to cutting-edge, frontier AI models, which could actually benefit later entrants, and thus rejected the regulatory capture argument.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.