OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Downplays Dangers of A.I. and Elon Musk

Sam Altman has played down the threat posed by artificial intelligence, saying the technology would be able to mirror the capability of humans sooner than the average person realizes but would “matter much less” than many predicted.The chief executive of OpenAI told The New York Times’s DealBook conference in New York City that the company would release increasingly powerful technologies over the next 12 months and hinted that it could achieve artificial general intelligence, when a machine can do almost anything a human brain can, in the next few years.But he pushed back against the gloomy warnings about the threat A.I.posed.

“A lot of the safety concerns that we and others expressed actually don’t come at the A.G.I.moment,” he said, adding that the technology would significantly accelerate economic growth.Mr.

Altman’s comments are deeply intertwined with OpenAI’s ability to survive as a business.The company’s largest investor is Microsoft, which has pumped more than $13 billion into the start-up and holds an exclusive license to use OpenAI’s raw A.I.

technologies.But tensions have risen in recent months, and the contract between the two companies says that Microsoft would lose this license if OpenAI’s board unilaterally decides that it has created an A.G.I.OpenAI also faces growing competition from several rivals, including Elon Musk and his start-up xAI.

Mr.Musk co-founded OpenAI as a not-for-profit entity before falling out with Mr.

Altman.But he has sued the company, accusing it of putting commercial interests ahead of the public good, and violating the company’s founding charter.Mr.

Altman said he was “tremendously sad” about the rising tensions between the two one-time collaborators.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for ...