SAM ALTMAN SAYS WORLD RIGHT TO BE AFRAID OF AI

Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, said the world is "right to be afraid" of artificial intelligence, speaking at the Dreamforce 2026 conference in San Francisco alongside Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff. He said people should trust his company "to do the right thing because it's the right thing and we feel the magnitude of this." He identified two main risks: a "loss-of-control accident" or serious failure, and the danger that AI could concentrate power among a small number of companies, letting them unduly influence the economy. Altman said commercial pressure and competition between companies or countries could lead some to "not do the right thing."

The comments followed renewed scrutiny of the AI industry, after former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon warned that people building AI "earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade." Altman also referred to what he called the "Hugging Face accident," calling it "obviously a terrifying incident" that had raised wider awareness of AI's capabilities. He said AI companies do not intend to use their models for "nefarious means," adding "there should be no qualifier on that." He said increasingly capable models meant more people were paying attention to the risks.

Altman said it would be good for the AI industry to coordinate and allow enough time to develop the technology safely. He pointed to earlier comments in which he said "the world deserves confidence that American companies developing increasingly capable AI will act responsibly." He described OpenAI as navigating a "narrow path," saying he was "confident in our ability to do this." The remarks were Altman's first public comments since Coxon's warning prompted debate over AI safety.