'The right approach is for people to deeply control the future': OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is worried about AI being controlled by just a few powerful players

Date:
Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:15:00 +0000

Description:
Sam Altman has expressed concerns that large companies with AI interests are determining the direction the technology takes, rather than society

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is
worried that powerful companies are dominating the evolution of AI Altman has also expressed concern over AIs potential for acting autonomously and
possibly escaping human control The comments are believed to be a reference
to his rival, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Are too few companies wielding undue influence on the direction of AI? That seems to be the belief of OpenAIs Sam Altman, who has warned against a scenario where the people dont have a say in how AI changes the world. Speaking to the David Senra podcast, Altman expressed a desire to see "society and the models... co-evolve."

While this may seem desirable, a byproduct of this thinking might be harder
to accommodate. Altman also expanded on his view that governments should not regulate AI, expressing a view that prefers the existence of liberty over the possibility of safety. Altman is the latest tech founder to appear on David Senras weekly podcast, which started in 2025 with Spotifys Daniel Ek as the guest. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: Evolving together Sam Altman on Building OpenAI & Betting on the Impossible - YouTube Watch On Altmans view is he sees AI evolving alongside human acceptance of the technology. Society and the model will evolve together, he said. The right approach is for people to deeply control the future.

However, he revealed that things havent moved quite as fast as he thought
they might when OpenAI first released GPT-4. I thought when we got to GPT-4, which was back in 2023, that very quickly after that there was going to be much more disruption. One of Altmans expectations back then was software businesses being more widely and directly impacted by AI. You may like 'AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, therell be great companies' - quote of the day by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
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While the inertia in the economy has reduced the impact in that regard (for the moment, at least), Altman is excited about AIs ability to unlock small business opportunities. We are about to see the greatest boom in people starting smaller businesses than we have ever seen AI is empowering that. Liberty and open models Altmans view of liberty and the need for open models puts him in direct opposition to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who, in June 2026, stated that the latest Mythos model could prove a risk to the financial sector and infrastructure and present a challenge to cybersecurity. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

For Sam Altman, this is the wrong way around. There are a lot of people who are so nervous about the magnitude of those risks and get so taken by that
and feel a need to protect the world, he said. Like, you know, We should
trade off a lot of liberty for safety.

Interestingly, most major Chinese AI companies release open-weight (the open source of AI) models, enabling them to match Anthropic and OpenAI. While Anthropic is yet to release an open weight model, OpenAI has released two: gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b.

But will the people and small businesses derive long-term advantage from OpenAIs liberty-based open models or stick with Anthropics closed, "safe" models? Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/the-right-approach-is-for-people-to-deeply-contr ol-the-future-openai-ceo-sam-altman-is-worried-about-ai-being-controlled-by-ju st-a-few-powerful-players


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