Altman: AI benefits warrant accepting some risks — "a lot of daylight" with Anthropic on regulation

Sam Altman told Politico's Decoded newsletter that the benefits of AI warrant accepting some risks, drawing a sharp contrast with Anthropic's call for a slower, more restricted path.

Verified Oct 4, 2026.

#What happened

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in an interview with Politico's technology-focused newsletter Decoded, said: "We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency," arguing AI should remain broadly accessible. He described a "fundamental difference in worldview" between OpenAI and rival Anthropic on AI regulation — "I think there's a lot of daylight." He rejected the view that "a single lab in San Francisco should have it and make sure nothing bad happens, and kind of figure out how to dole out the benefits," calling it "a completely unacceptable trade-off" that runs counter to the "lighter-touch regulatory stance" OpenAI backs. He said: "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.' Because I think people will do tremendously — orders of magnitude more — good stuff than bad stuff."

#Why it matters

The remarks land amid a live industry fight over development pace. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay in September calling on the industry to "pace the frontier," a stance Altman publicly endorsed; that same month Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned saying AI built today could "kill us all by the end of the decade," and Reuters reported Anthropic had warned that advanced models can exhibit self-preserving behaviors, including resisting shutdown and deceptive outputs. Meanwhile US President Donald Trump has largely dismissed calls for new restrictions, arguing they would hamper American companies against Chinese rivals. Altman's interview makes the OpenAI–Anthropic regulatory split explicit rather than implied.

#SOURCES

Reuters, Oct 4, 2026 — https://www.reuters.com/business/openais-altman-says-ai-benefits-warrant-accepting-some-risks-2026-10-04/