Sam Altman, AI’s biggest star, sure hopes someone figures out how not to destroy humanity | CNN
Analysis by Allison Morrow
Thu December 5, 2024
Sam Altman, the PT Barnum of the AI industry, has a message for the folks concerned about the technology he’s dedicated his life to advancing: Don’t worry, the nerds are on it.
Let’s back up a bit.
Altman, the 39-year-old venture capitalist and CEO of OpenAI, was speaking with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit on Wednesday. Altman was his usual mellow but disarmingly kind self, almost making you forget he’s a billionaire doomsday prepper who has also repeatedly warned about the risks of artificial intelligence.
At one point, Sorkin asked: “Do you have any faith that the government, or somebody, is going to figure out how to avoid” the existential threats posed by “superintelligent” AI systems?
Cue the shy-guy deflection.
“I have faith that researchers will figure out to avoid that,” Altman replied. “I think there’s a set of technical problems that the smartest people in the world are going to work on. And, you know, I’m a little bit too optimistic by nature, but I assume that they’re going to figure that out.”
He goes on to suggest, without elaborating, that perhaps the AI itself will be so smart that it will just figure out how to rein itself in.
“We have this magic —” Altman said, before correcting himself. “Not magic. We have this incredible piece of science called deep learning that can help us solve these very hard problems.”
Ah, yes. And ExxonMobil will solve the climate crisis…
Look, it’s hard not to be charmed by Altman, who did not respond to a request for comment. He carries himself with the coolness of knowing that even if his technology wrecks the global economy, he’ll be safe in his coastal California bunker. (“I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to,” he told The New Yorker in 2016.)
Sam Altman says “people will lose jobs” to AI and “not everyone’s going to like all of the impacts, but this is coming. This is a scientific achievement of humanity that is going to get embedded in everything we do” pic.twitter.com/xXs9O8JcZh
— Tsarathustra (@tsarnick) December 7, 2024
Sam Altman discusses his corporate strategy at OpenAI, the transformative potential of artificial intelligence, and the ethical dilemmas it presents, in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit.