OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Politico's Decoded newsletter that "we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency," arguing that AI's broad benefits outweigh its harms.
His remarks drew a sharp dividing line between OpenAI and Anthropic, which has been pushing for tighter controls on frontier AI — including mandatory safety testing and stronger government oversight of powerful models.
"A lot of daylight" with Anthropic
Altman acknowledged there is "a lot of daylight" between the two labs' worldviews, and called letting "a single lab in San Francisco" decide how AI's benefits are distributed "a completely unacceptable trade-off."
"I wouldn't take a trade of saying, 'We'll make sure there's no major hacks, there's no misuse of this technology, there's zero scams, there's zero all the other bad things that will happen,'" Altman said. "Because I think people will do tremendously — orders of magnitude more — good stuff than bad stuff."
A widening industry divide
The interview underscored a widening split across the AI industry: on one side, Anthropic and its allies warn that increasingly capable systems demand strict guardrails; on the other, Altman is betting that open competition and user agency will produce far more good than harm.
Trump rejects new rules
The comments landed just as US President Donald Trump rejected calls for new federal AI rules — a deregulatory signal from Washington that, for now, aligns with Altman's argument against tighter controls.
By Hamza Faisal
