# Sam Altman

Samuel Harris Altman (born 1985) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and programmer. He is the CEO of OpenAI and was the co-founder of Loopt. He previously was the president of Y Combinator and was briefly the CEO of Reddit.

## Quotes
### 2024

* I genuinely hope the best for [Elon Musk], in spite of everything.
** How did Kara Scoop OpenAI, and More on Burn Book (with Sam Altman), On with Kara Swisher podcast (March 11th, 2024) in response to Elon Musk lawsuit against OpenAI.
* One area that I'm particularly interested personally in open source for is I want an open source model that is as good as it can be, that runs on my phone, and that I think is going to, you know...the world doesn't quite have the technology for a good version of that yet, but that seems like a really important thing to go do at some point.
** In Conversation with Sam Altman, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg podcast (May 10th, 2024)

### 2023

* Do we make sure AI is a tool that has proper safeguards as it gets really powerful? (November 23, 2023)
** What Sam Altman said about AI at a CEO summit the day before OpenAI ousted him as CEO, Fortune (December 14, 2023)
* I aspect AI to be capable of superhuman persuasion before it is superhuman at general intelligence, which may lead to some very strange outcomes.
** As quoted in Maggie Harrison, Sam Altman Warns That AI Is Learning "Superhuman Persuasion", October 28, 2023.
* I think AGI will be the best tool humanity has yet created. With it, we will be able to solve all sorts of problems. We'll be able to express ourselves in new creative ways. We'll make just incredible things for each other, for ourselves, for the world, for kind of this unfolding human story. And it's new, and anything new comes with change and change is not always all easy. But I think this will be just absolutely tremendous upside. And in nine more years if you're nice enough to invite me back, you'll roll this question and people will say, "How could we have thought we didn't want this?"
** As quoted in A Conversation with OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Mira Murati (October 20, 2023)
* I’m a Midwestern Jew. I think that fully explains my exact mental model—very optimistic, and prepared for things to go super wrong at any point.
** As quoted in OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Is Pushing Past Doubts on Artificial Intelligence (June 21, 2023)
* I’m reasonably optimistic about solving the technical alignment problem. We still have a lot of work to do but you know I feel …better and better over time, not worse and worse.
** As quoted in OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Discusses Ethics & Global Scale Of Changes AI Brings (September 11, 2023)
* I think what we believe in very strongly, is that keeping the rate of change in the world relatively constant, rather than, say, go build AGI in secret and then deploy it all at once when you’re done, is much better. This idea that people relatively gradually have time to get used to this incredible new thing that is going to transform so much of the world, get a feel for it, have time to update. You know, institutions and people do not update very well overnight. They need to be part of its evolution, to provide critical feedback, to tell us when we’re doing dumb mistakes, to find the areas of great benefit and potential harm, to make our mistakes and learn our lessons when the stakes are lower than they will be in the future. Although we still would like to avoid them as much as we can, of course. And I don’t just mean we, I mean the field as a whole, sort of understanding, as with any new technology, where the tricky parts are going to be..
** As quoted in Surprising Admissions by OpenAI Leaders Made in Recent Interviews (August 8, 2023)
* In a well functioning society, governments would be doing the AGI project and [nuclear] fusion and a whole bunch of things — and yet they’re not. So we either sit around and watch the gradual decline of state capacity and say ‘that’s a bummer’ and we’re just not going to have any more technical progress . . . or you do the next best thing and just build great companies.
** As quoted in Sam Altman’s vision for AI puts him on collision course with regulators (July 25, 2023)
* Is [AI] gonna be like the printing press that diffused knowledge, power, and learning widely across the landscape that empowered ordinary, everyday individuals that led to greater flourishing, that led above all two greater liberty? Or is it gonna be more like the atom bomb – huge technological breakthrough, but the consequences (severe, terrible) continue to haunt us to this day?
** As quoted in Sam Altman warns AI could kill us all. But he still wants the world to use it (October 31, 2023)
* Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.
** As quoted in Sam Altman warns AI could kill us all. But he still wants the world to use it (October 31, 2023)
* We face serious risk. We face existential risk. The challenge that the world has is how we’re going to manage those risks and make sure we still get to enjoy those tremendous benefits. No one wants to destroy the world. Let's make sure we come together as a globe — and I hope this place can play a real role in this. We talk about the IAEA as a model where the world has said 'OK, very dangerous technology, let's all put some guard rails.' And I think we can do both. I think in this case, it's a nuanced message 'cause it's saying it's not that dangerous today but it can get dangerous fast. But we can thread that needle.
** As quoted in OpenAI's Sam Altman calls for an international agency like the UN's nuclear watchdog to oversee AI (June 7, 2023)
* Trust the exponential. Flat looking backwards, vertical looking forwards.
** Conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk (December 3, 2022)

## Quotes about Altman

* The San Francisco-based company said late Tuesday that it “reached an agreement in principle” for co-founder Sam Altman to return as CEO under a different board of directors
** accoriding to OpenAI brings back Sam Altman as CEO just days after his firing unleashed chaos (November 21, 2023)

## External links

Media related to Sam Altman on Wikimedia Commons