Sam Altman’s remarks at the United Nations Security Council

Today, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the United Nations Security Council on artificial intelligence. He discussed AI’s potential to expand opportunity, the importance of keeping powerful systems under human control, and the need for international cooperation on AI safety.

Thank you, Mr. President and your Excellencies. I’m honored to be here and to be able to speak with you all at this important time.

We have been talking about artificial intelligence for years, but it feels different in recent weeks and months. Rapid model progress has made the timeline feel more compressed, the upside more tangible, but also the stakes and the risks more immediate.

We have a choice in front of us. AI can either be more like a new Renaissance of creativity and discovery, or more like a new Industrial Revolution of upheaval and disarray.

The Renaissance was a time when new tools, new ideas, and new institutions expanded what people believed they could do. AI can play that role for our time. I believe that people are much more capable than they imagine themselves to be, but have been held back by limited technology that was meant to empower but instead distracts and often steals attention.

The best version of AI is not about making people cogs in a giant machine, or optimizing every part of life until the human parts disappear. It is about giving people more agency in an ever more complex world: more ability to learn, to create, discover, build, participate. There are many things that AI cannot—and should not—automate.

AI should be built for people, not simply to turn the crank of the machines faster for their own sake. Some of the things people working to build AI have said are so dystopian that they sound like the plot of bad science fiction movies.

Anything this powerful is also intimidating. This moment is complicated as we feel both tremendous potential and very understandable anxiety at the same time.

These models can help people discover new knowledge: new medicines, better health care, stronger education, and build more productive economies. They can be new tools for people to pursue dreams and ambition that today feel out of reach. The complexity of life has increased so dramatically for the average person. AI can be a defensive tool against this complexity as much as it can be this tool of unprecedented discovery and innovation.

On the other hand, as AI systems become more capable and more autonomous, they could move faster than our institutions, concentrate power in too few hands, or make decisions that people no longer understand or control.

That concern becomes especially important as we approach systems that can improve themselves and future versions of themselves, often called recursive self-improvement. As the process of building AI becomes more automated, the pace of AI progress could accelerate rapidly. This moment calls for extreme care.

I largely agree with Professor Bengio. Although I’ll say two instead of three—I believe there are two ways that AI progress could go very badly that we have to avoid.

First, we could lose control of the future to AI. The risk is that it moves so fast that people can no longer follow what’s happening or intervene when needed. This would obviously be terrible.

The industry must not accept too much technological risk just because the benefits are too great and that they feel too important to slow down. Beating companies in a competitive pace is not a reason to make rash decisions. Nor do we believe we are locked in a race where we are unable to do that. We have unilaterally slowed down in the past. We will do so in the future. We do not want to build systems—we think it’s important that everyone avoids building systems—where we cannot make the alignment, monitorability, and safety guarantees that we must.

We need to understand what these systems are doing and have strong evidence that they will do what people intend, even as they get very, very smart. Actually especially as they get very very smart. It doesn’t matter whether people put the risk of catastrophe at 10%, or 1%, or 12%, or .1%. None of these levels are remotely acceptable. And we should not train models that we cannot make an extremely strong case that we will be able to keep under human control.

So that’s one way things can go wrong. In the other direction, these systems could concentrate too much power in too few hands. No one person or company or country should be able to use the most powerful AI models to impose their worldview on everyone else. A company or country that believes only it can be trusted with this technology can use that belief to justify almost anything else. We have to reject that logic, even when it’s convenient for any one actor.

Aku percaya ana dalan pragmatis kanggo ngatasi loro-lorone. Ing OpenAI, kita nyedhaki pitakon-pitakon iki kanthi tujuan sing cetha: AI kudu menehi wong kakuwatan luwih gedhe kanggo ngatur uripe dhewe. Luwih bebas nglakoni urip kaya sing dikarepake. Luwih bisa ngrampungake masalah, gedhe utawa cilik, lan mbenakake komunitase. Kita ora kepengin kejebak ing optimisme wuta. Kita uga ora kepengin kejebak ing pandangan yen kabeh bakal tumuju bencana. Keseret menyang salah siji titik ekstrem ora bakal mbantu kita ngrampungake tantangan ing ngarep, luwih-luwih nalika donya lan para pendhudhuke ngadhepi tantangan gedhe banget sing bisa direwangi dening teknologi iki. Mula, kita ngupaya mlaku ing dalan tengah antarane rong kutub kasebut.

Kanggo kita, iki ateges telung prinsip.

Kaping pisan, nalika AI saya mampu, manungsa kudu tetep dadi punjering pengambilan keputusan AI. Penyelarasan dudu pitakon riset sing abstrak. Iki minangka upaya kanggo mesthekake manawa sistem kasebut tansah bisa diandelake tetep ana ing kendhali manungsa, nggambarake nilai-nilai manungsa, lan mbantu wong ngarahake tahap pangembangan sabanjure. Kita ora ngupaya, lan pancen ora kena, ngotomatisasi pertimbangan utawa nilai-nilai manungsa.

Kaping pindho, manfaat kemajuan ilmiah lan pertumbuhan ekonomi kudu digawe dening manungsa lan kanggo manungsa. AI kudu mbantu peneliti nemokake panemon, dhokter nambani pasien, guru mulang siswa, wirausaha ngedegake perusahaan, komunitas ngrampungake masalah sing sadurunge katon ora kagayuh, lan akeh liyane. Crita kemajuan manungsa sing terus lumaku dudu crita piranti ngganteni daya tumindake manungsa. Nanging crita ngenani piranti sing trep ndadekake wong luwih mampu, lan aku percaya pengaruhe bakal ngluwihi apa sing saiki kita kira bisa kelakon.

Kaping telu, teknologi iki kudu nguwatake saben wong. Mangsa ngarep sing becik bakal kawujud nalika wong-wong mujudake potensine lan nyipta nilai kanggo awake dhewe, komunitase, negarane, lan donya kanthi luwih amba. Kita bisa uga dadi salah siji pihak sing mbangun teknologi iki, nanging kita dudu pahlawan ing crita iki. Peran kita yaiku mbisakake wong ing saindenging donya lan percaya marang kaelokan kaprigelan lan kabisaning manungsa.

Saiki kita duwe model sing bisa nemokake kawruh sing durung nate kita duweni. Coba gatekna kemajuan sing wis kita deleng ing matematika. Telung mangsa panas kepungkur, model kita lumayan kanggo matematika tingkat sekolah dhasar. Rong mangsa panas kepungkur, model kasebut wis cukup apik ing kompetisi matematika tingkat sekolah menengah. Mangsa panas kepungkur, kita nggayuh tingkat medhali emas ing kompetisi matematika internasional sing paling bergengsi. Lan mung sawetara minggu kepungkur ing mangsa panas iki, salah siji model kita ngrampungake salah siji Masalah Bebungah Milenium, yaiku persamaan Navier–Stokes.

Persamaan iki digunakake kanggo ngrancang pesawat, prakiraan cuaca, lan nyinaoni ilining getih. Kita ora ngrampungake masalah matematika mung kanggo matematika kuwi dhewe, nanging kanggo nguwatake wong supaya nemokake kawruh anyar lan nggunakake kawruh kasebut kanggo mbenakake layanan kesehatan, ngunggahake taraf urip, lan nggedhekake potensi saben wong ing saindenging donya. Isih akeh banget sing durung ditemokake.

Nanging, perusahaan aja nganti ngganteni proses demokratis. Iki wigati banget.

Yen AI arep asipat demokratis, keputusan sing paling wigati ora kena mung digawe dening laboratorium ing San Francisco. Keputusan kasebut kudu kawangun lumantar proses demokratis lan dening pamrentah sing tanggung jawab marang rakyat sing diladeni.

Ing tingkat internasional, iki mbutuhake kerja sama. Ing sejarah kita, negara-negara sing padha saingan lan ora mesthi rukun nate tetep nyawiji demi kapentingan bebarengan lan kabecikan umum nalika ngadhepi teknologi anyar sing kuwasa. Kita percaya saiki kudu dadi salah siji wektu kaya mangkono.

Kita mbutuhake mekanisme kanggo standar AI tercanggih nasional lan internasional sing padha njangkepi: standar kanggo ngukur kapabilitas, mbiji risiko, nemtokake apa pengamane wis cukup, lan njaga pangawasan manungsa sing nyata nalika sistem dadi saya otonom.

Kita mbutuhake standar bebarengan supaya negara-negara bisa mbandhingake bukti, verifikasi kepatuhan, lan duwe basa sarta pangerten sing padha ngenani apa sing kedadeyan.

Kita mbutuhake pelaporan kedadeyan sing akurat lan cepet, uga protokol klasifikasi lan pelaporan, supaya donya bisa sinau saka kegagalan sadurunge malih dadi bencana.

Kita uga mbutuhake saluran aman antaraning pamrentah, operator infrastruktur kritis, lan ahli teknis kanggo nuduhake kerentanan sing lagi muncul lan ancaman anyar.

Mesthine, standar kasebut aja nganti ngukuhake dominasi pelaku lawas utawa luwih nguntungake siji model bisnis tinimbang liyane. Standar kasebut kudu ndhukung pangembang model mbukak lan katutup, pendatang anyar lan laboratorium mapan, wewenang nasional lan kerja sama internasional. Saben pamrentah kudu nemtokake dhewe carane nglebokake standar kasebut menyang sistem hukume. Nanging kita kabeh bakal luwih becik yen bisa sarujuk ngenani kaya apa bukti, pangaman, lan pangawasan sing apik ing tataran global.

Kita ora duwe kabeh wangsulan lan mbukak banget marang gagasan apa wae sing luwih apik. Kita siyap makarya bareng panjenengan kabeh lan ngupaya kanthi temen kanggo nemokake dalan maju.

Kita saiki ana ing prapatan. Dalan siji tumuju donya sing kakuwasane mung kakumpul ing sawetara pihak, keputusane ora transparan, lan wong-wong rumangsa yen teknologi paling wigati ing uripe ditrapake marang dheweke tanpa melu nemtokake. Dalan sijine tumuju donya sing AI makarya kanggo manungsa amarga masyarakat, lumantar lembaga demokratis, melu nemtokake carane AI kudu dikembangake lan diarahake; kemajuan ilmiah mbenakake urip nyata; luwih akeh wong bisa melu mbangun mangsa ngarep; lan teknologi iki terus menehi kakuwatan luwih gedhe marang individu lan komunitas supaya bisa urip kaya sing dikarepake. Iki mangsa ngarep nalika potensi bisa diwujudake, kebak semangat lan kaelokan.

Lan kita percaya yen mangsa ngarep iki pantes diwujudake. Matur nuwun sanget.