OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s stark warning: AI could bring ‘really bad stuff’

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned against “some really bad stuff” happening because of artificial intelligence (AI). Speaking on the a16z podcast from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Altman specifically highlighted the potential for “really strange or scary moments.

” “I expect some really bad stuff to happen because of the technology,” the tech CEO said as OpenAI’s new video application, Sora 2 gains popularity. The app was announced last month. Shortly after the release, instances of its use to create deepfake videos of renowned people appeared on social media. So much so that the company had to issue an apology, addressing concerns over how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s likeness is represented in Sora generations. Sora’s launch demonstrated the speed at which such technology can penetrate mainstream. "Very soon the world is going to have to contend with incredible video models that can deepfake anyone or kind of show anything you want," Altman said. He argued that society and AI must "co-evolve" and that "you can't just drop the thing at the end.”During the podcast, Altman cautioned against a future where most people will let computers program and make choices on their behalf.

“I do still think there are going to be some really strange or scary moments,” he said, adding that the absence of a catastrophic AI-related event to date “doesn’t mean it never will.”He further described a scenario where “billions of people talking to the same brain”. This, he warned, could result in unexpected and rapid chain reactions, leading to “weird, societal-scale things.”Despite the warnings, Sam Altman dismissed government regulation of the technology. He said “Most regulation probably has a lot of downside”. He favours a “very careful safety testing” for what he termed “extremely superhuman” AI models. Altman concluded with a belief in a societal adaptation process, saying, “I think we’ll develop some guardrails around it as a society.”