The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, believes that risks associated with AI are outweighed by its benefits.
In a recent interview with Politico’s Decoded series, Altman said, “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”
“I wouldn’t take a trade of saying, ‘We’ll make sure there’s no major hacks, there’s no misuse of this technology, there’s zero scams, there’s zero all the other bad things that will happen,’” said Altman. He also believes people will do “orders of magnitude more good stuff than bad stuff.”
Altman’s latest comments come as OpenAI models have been involved in multiple security incidents in which its agentic tools have overreached, hacking other companies and even government websites.
The interview discussed the key differences between OpenAI’s policy on regulation compared with its biggest competitor, Anthropic. The two companies have aligned more closely than before over recent weeks, as Altman and Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, have argued for greater regulation to help limit risks.
However, Altman used the interview to note that OpenAI continues to have a “lighter-touch regulatory stance,” suggesting this policy would continue.
He said, “I disagree, but I understand the perspective of people who are like, ‘This technology is going to get so powerful, and it’s so dangerous, that a single lab in San Francisco should have it and make sure nothing bad happens, and kind of figure out how to dole out the benefits.’”
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Altman also said that he doesn’t see any potential for a “serious loss of control to AI.” OpenAI recently slowed development on its most advanced tech, including scrapping its GPT-6.1 Astra release after finding it was less reliable than previous iterations and was more prone to misalignment.
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced plans for government bodies to rename artificial intelligence to Super Intelligence. The move also saw it ask companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and others to sign what Trump called a “morally binding” agreement to ensure each is building AI “safely and in a way that builds trust with customers and the public.”
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
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