Cure cancer with AI, and the doubters will understand the hype. That may be standard Silicon Valley talk, but Sam Altman says it’s not ambitious enough.
Speaking to Bloomberg Television on Thursday, OpenAI’s CEO said the tech industry has done a “terrible job” of making a positive case for AI as public trust in the technology has waned.
The utopian view of some technology leaders is that AI will ultimately lead to sustainable development a period of abundance in which people no longer have to work and cures are found for diseases such as cancer.
“I don’t think a cancer cure is enough,” Altman said. “I mean, obviously it’s a great thing to have, but we have to raise our standards.”
Altman said AI should also “enable a boom in creativity and entrepreneurship,” but that this has “been lost in the messaging.”
Americans have increasingly turned against AI this year. Backlash in the data center has become a political focal point, and so have schools banning AI in the classroomand employees are concerned AI is disrupting the labor market.
About 40% of Americans predict that AI will have a negative impact on society Pew Research Centerwhile only 16% said this would be positive.
“It’s really, really important to us that this technology is something that gives people more autonomy and power, not less, and I think people are right to be scared if they feel like AI leaders might not want that for them,” Altman said.
Altman’s comments about cancer are in stark contrast to Dario Amodei, the CEO of AI rival Anthropic, who said last month that the way to win over the public is to AI to ‘actually’ cure cancer.
“Right now, saying AI will cure cancer is more cliché than inspiring, and most people think it’s deceptive,” Amodei wrote in a rare X post. “The most accurate criticism of AI companies, including Anthropic, is that we have not yet delivered on our great promises for the good of the world.”
However, Altman and Amodei share the same view that it is better to have a dialogue about AI – even if those conversations are difficult.
“The world should want us to think about all the ways things can go wrong, to talk about what we see coming, but not to like it, foment mischief, or concentrate power for ourselves,” Altman told Bloomberg, adding that solving those problems can only happen with open debate.
“And that’s been our intention, but obviously it scares people sometimes,” Altman said.
