OpenAI CEO says ‘very subtle’ misalignments could make AI wreak havoc

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday warned the “very subtle societal misalignments” within artificial intelligence (AI) could cause things to “go horribly wrong,” while still expressing optimism about the technology’s benefits.

“There’s some things in there that are easy to imagine where things really go wrong. And I’m not that interested in the killer robots walking on the street direction of things going wrong,” Altman said Tuesday via a video call at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

“I’m much more interested in the very subtle societal misalignments where we just have these systems out in society and through no particular ill intention, things just go horribly wrong,” added Altman, whose company created ChatGPT.

Altman, however, said he believes “things will go tremendously right,” if efforts are made to mitigate the downsides of AI technology.