OpenAI boss warns of two ways AI could go ‘very badly’ for humans

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has warned that the rapid development of artificial intelligence could go “very badly” for humanity in two major ways.

“There are two ways AI progress could go very badly, and that we must avoid. First, we could lose control of the future to AI. This is unacceptable; we are unapologetically on Team Humanity,” Altman wrote in a post on X just after midnight Monday.

“Second, we could end up in a world with too much concentration of power. If an extraordinarily powerful AI is used by one person or company to impress their worldview onto everyone else, the results could be extremely dystopian.”

Altman and rival Elon Musk, who were earlier this year locked in a legal battle, over the weekend backed a lengthy letter from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urging global companies to slow their work on top AI models.

It comes after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit his job and sent shockwaves through the industry last week with a warning that firms like Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives,” adding that AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

The US and China have been locked in a fierce battle to pull ahead in the AI race, as tech leaders have warned that more powerful AI could allow China superior surveillance tactics, military battleground power and cybersecurity hacking capabilities.

“Fear-mongering, confrontation, competition will just disrupt [the] process of global AI governance,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said Monday, according to a translation by Reuters.