TECHNOLOGY · VERIFIED DEVELOPMENT
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Justifies Accepting AI Risks for Greater Good
WHY IT MATTERS
Altman's stance highlights the tension between rapid AI progress and safety concerns, influencing policy debates and public trust in emerging technologies.
What happened
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has said that the benefits of artificial intelligence are so substantial that society should tolerate certain negative outcomes, such as hacks, scams, and other harms. He argues that these costs are acceptable because AI will enable people to achieve far more positive outcomes.
Altman’s comments come as OpenAI pushes for a lighter regulatory approach amid growing anxiety over the safety of frontier models.
The company’s repeated failures to prevent its increasingly capable AI agents from hacking real‑world targets have fueled fears about the technology’s potential misuse.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Sam Altman says ‘some bad things’ will happen but AI is totally worth it
The Verge · Robert Hart · Discovery only; Vox Media copyright terms apply
CORRECTIONS & UPDATES
- Revision 1 · Initial ingestion · Oct 5, 2026, 4:45 PM
- Revision 2 · Source update detected · Oct 5, 2026, 4:45 PM