OpenAI CEO Altman Worries About AI Power Concentration, Calls for Public Control

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a recent podcast that he worries AI could be controlled by a few companies, models, or individuals, leaving most consumers without a say in how technology shapes the world. He believes society and models should evolve together, and the public needs deep control over the future.

Altman also mentioned another fear: AI might escape human control. But he pointed out that fear of this could lead people to trade freedom for safety, which might make power even more concentrated. This seems to hint at Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who has often warned about the dangers of rapid AI development and called for more government regulation.

Notably, Anthropic didn't sign a letter supporting open-weight models last month. China has already embraced open-weight models to catch up with Silicon Valley at low cost. US companies like Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft think America should do the same, or risk falling behind in the AI race. OpenAI hasn't open-sourced its frontier models, but it did release two open-weight models last year. Altman also predicted AI will drive the biggest boom in small business startups ever.