OpenAI ceo Sam Altman On Friday, he broke his silence after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at his home in San Francisco, publishing a blog post where he shared a photo of his family, reflected on his mistakes and called on the AI industry to lower the temperature.“I’m awake in the middle of the night and peeing,” Altman wrote. He also said that he “underestimated the power of words and narratives.” The post—part personal reckoning, part industry manifesto—came hours after a 20-year-old man allegedly threw an incendiary device at the outside gate of Altman’s North Beach residence at about 3:45 p.m. No one was injured.Altman used the moment to state what he believes: that AI should be “democratic”, that fear around the technology is “justified”, and that democratic institutions need to remain “more powerful than companies”. He also admitted that OpenAI’s journey has been messy. “I am a flawed individual at the center of an exceptionally complex situation,” he wrote, adding that he “is not proud to be anti-conflict” and apologized to those he hurt along the way.He ended with a blunt line: “We should tone down the rhetoric and tactics and try to blow up fewer houses, both figuratively and literally.”
Here is the full text of Sam Altman’s blog post
Here is a picture of my family. I love them more than anything.I hope there is power in images. Normally we try to stay pretty private, but in this case I’m sharing a photo in the hopes that it might deter the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think of me.The first person did this last night at 3:45 in the morning. Thankfully, it bounced off the house and no one was hurt.Words also have power. A few days ago there was an inflammatory article about me. Someone told me yesterday that they thought it was a time of great concern about AI and that made things more alarming to me. I put it aside.Now I’m awake and peeing in the middle of the night, and thinking I underestimated the power of words and narratives. Seems like it’s a good time to address a few things.First, what I believe.*Working towards prosperity for all, empowering all people and advancing science and technology are my moral obligations.*AI will be the most powerful tool for expanding human capability and capacity that anyone has ever seen. The demand for this device will be essentially limitless, and people will do incredible things with it. The world deserves massive amounts of AI and we have to figure out how to make it happen.*All this will not be fine. Fears and concerns about AI are justified; We are in the process of witnessing the biggest change in society in a long time and perhaps ever. We must get security right, which is not just about aligning to a model – we need an immediate society-wide response to be resilient to new threats. This includes things like new policy to help tackle difficult economic transitions to move towards a better future.*AI must be democratized; Power cannot be too concentrated. Control of the future belongs to all people and their organizations. AI needs to empower people individually, and we need to collectively decide about our future and the new rules. I don’t think it’s right that a few AI labs will make the most consequential decisions about the shape of our future.*Adaptability is important. We all are learning something new very fast; Some of our beliefs will be right and some will be wrong, and sometimes we will need to change our minds quickly as technology develops and society evolves. No one yet understands the effects of superintelligence, but they will be immense.Second, some personal thoughts.As I reflect on my work over the first decade of OpenAI, I can point to a lot of things I’m proud of and a lot of mistakes, too.I was thinking about our upcoming test ELON And remembering how adamant I was when I didn’t agree to the unilateral control he wanted over OpenAI. I’m proud of that, and the narrow path we took to make OpenAI’s continued existence and all its subsequent achievements possible.I am not proud of being anti-conflict, which has caused great pain to me and OpenAI. I’m not proud of the way we handled ourselves badly in the conflict with our previous board, which caused tremendous trouble for the company. I’ve made many other mistakes during OpenAI’s crazy trajectory; I’m a flawed person at the center of an exceptionally complex situation, trying to get a little better every year, always working toward a mission. Going into this we knew how big the risks of AI were, and that personal disagreements between well-intentioned people I cared about would be enormous. But navigating and often mediating these bitter conflicts is another matter, and the costs have been severe. I’m sorry to those I hurt and I wish I had learned faster.I’m also keenly aware that OpenAI is now a major platform, not a scrappy startup, and we now need to work in a more predictable way. It’s been an extremely intense, chaotic and high-pressure few years.However, I am extremely proud of the way we are accomplishing our mission, which seemed incredibly impossible when we started. Against all odds, we figured out how to build very powerful AI, figured out how to raise enough capital to build the infrastructure to deliver it, figured out how to build a product company and business, figured out how to provide reasonably secure and robust services at scale, and much more.Many companies say they are going to change the world; We really did.Third, some thoughts about the industry.My personal conclusion over the past several years, and knowing why there has been so much Shakespearean drama among companies in our sector, comes down to this: “Once you see AGI you can’t unsee it.” There’s a real “circle of power” dynamic here, and it makes people do crazy things. I don’t mean the AGI itself is the ring, but the overall philosophy of “being the one controlling the AGI”.The only solution I can think of is to tend to share the technology widely with people, and no one should own it. Two obvious ways to do this are through individual empowerment and ensuring that the democratic system remains in control.It is important that the democratic process remains more powerful than companies. Laws and norms are going to change, but we have to work within the democratic process, even if it will be messier and slower than we expected. We want to be a voice and stakeholder, but we don’t have all the power.Much of the criticism of our industry comes from serious concerns about the incredibly high risks of this technology. This is absolutely valid, and we welcome good-natured criticism and debate. I sympathize with anti-technology sentiments and frankly technology is not always good for everyone. But overall, I believe that technological advancements can make the future for you and my family incredibly good.While we have that debate, we should tone down the rhetoric and tactics and try to blow up fewer houses, both figuratively and literally.
