San Francisco, September 16, 2026: OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has acknowledged growing public fears about artificial intelligence, saying people are justified in worrying about the rapid development and growing influence of AI companies. At the same time, he urged the public to trust technology firms to act responsibly.
Speaking at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, Altman said advances in AI have made it easier to imagine how the technology could cause serious harm.
“I think the world is right to be afraid of this.”
Altman also pointed to concerns that a small number of AI companies could accumulate significant economic and social power and potentially exert undue influence over society.
However, the OpenAI chief said he remained confident that his company and the wider AI industry could manage the risks. He argued that AI developers should keep safety, monitoring and alignment ahead of the development of increasingly powerful capabilities, and said companies should slow down or stop if they could no longer maintain that balance.
“The world should trust that we are going to do the right thing,” Altman said, arguing that companies understand the significance of the technology they are developing.
Debate over AI self-regulation
Altman’s comments come amid a growing debate over whether AI companies should be allowed to regulate themselves or whether governments should impose stronger rules.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has called for a slower pace of AI development and greater safety measures. Other technology executives, including Nvidia chief Jensen Huang and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, have argued that AI companies have strong incentives to make their systems safe.
Huang said AI safety should be treated as an engineering issue and argued that companies should pause releases when they are not confident that their systems are under control.
Critics, however, question whether voluntary industry safeguards are sufficient. Anthropic executive Jack Clark has warned against leaving AI completely unregulated, saying the potential risks are too significant.
A growing challenge for the AI industry
The disagreement reflects a wider challenge facing the rapidly expanding AI sector. Companies are racing to develop more capable systems while governments, researchers and the public are debating how those systems should be tested, monitored and controlled.
The discussion extends beyond hypothetical long-term risks. AI is already being used in workplaces and software development and is increasingly relevant to cybersecurity and other areas of society.
Altman’s remarks therefore highlight a central tension in the AI debate: how to encourage the potential benefits of increasingly powerful technology while ensuring that safety and accountability keep pace with its development.
