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.
我相信，我们能够找到一条务实的道路，化解这两方面的问题。在OpenAI，我们以一个明确目标来思考这些问题：AI应让人们对自己的生活拥有更大的自主权。让人们能更自由地按照自己的意愿生活。让人们更有能力解决大大小小的问题，改善所在的社区。我们不想陷入盲目乐观的误区。同样也不想陷入末日论的误区。被任何一个极端裹挟，都无助于我们妥善应对眼前的挑战。尤其是在这个时刻，世界及其人民正面临诸多严峻挑战，而这项技术能够帮助解决这些问题。因此，我们努力在这两个极端之间走一条中间道路。
对我们而言，这意味着三项原则。
第一，随着AI能力不断增强，人必须始终处于AI决策的核心。对齐并非一个抽象的研究问题。这项工作的目标，是确保这些系统始终可靠地处于人类控制之下，体现人类价值观，并帮助人们引导后续发展。我们并不打算，也绝不能将人类判断或人类价值观自动化。
第二，科学进步和经济增长的成果必须由人民创造、为人民服务。AI应帮助研究人员取得发现、医生治疗患者、教师教导学生、创业者创办企业，帮助社区解决曾经遥不可及的问题，并带来更多可能。人类不断进步的历程，从来不是工具取代人的自主能动性。真正的进步在于，合适的工具让人们更有能力。我相信，它所带来的进步将远超我们的想象。
第三，这项技术必须赋能每一个人。美好的未来，将来自人们充分发挥自身潜能，为自己、社区、国家乃至整个世界创造价值。我们或许是这项技术的建设者之一，但并不是这个故事的主角。我们的职责是赋能世界各地的人们，并相信人类才智与能力所蕴含的奇迹。
如今，我们拥有了能够发现前所未知知识的模型。以我们在数学领域取得的进展为例。三年前的夏天，我们的模型应付小学数学还算可以。两年前的夏天，它们在高中数学竞赛中已表现不俗。去年夏天，我们在最负盛名的国际数学竞赛中达到了金牌水平。就在今年夏天的几周前，我们的一个模型解决了千禧年大奖难题之一——纳维-斯托克斯方程。
这些方程用于飞机设计、天气预报和血流研究。我们解决数学问题，并不是为了数学问题本身，而是为了帮助人们发现新知识，并运用这些知识改善医疗健康、提高生活水平，让世界各地的每个人都能释放更大潜能。仍有无数未知等待我们探索。
但至关重要的是，企业不能取代民主程序。
如果AI要体现民主原则，最重要的决策就不能只由旧金山的实验室作出。这些决策必须通过民主程序来塑造，并由对其所服务人民负责的政府参与制定。
在国际层面，这需要各方开展合作。回顾历史，每当强大的新技术出现，即使彼此竞争、关系并不融洽的国家，也曾为了共同利益和集体福祉走到一起。我们认为，现在也必须如此。
我们需要建立一种机制，使各国和国际层面的前沿AI标准相互补充。这些标准应涵盖能力衡量、风险评估、防护措施充分性判定，以及随着系统自主性增强，如何确保人类继续实施切实有效的监督。
我们需要统一标准，让各国能够比较证据、核查合规情况，并以共同的语言和认知理解正在发生的变化。
我们需要准确、迅速的事件报告机制，以及分类和报告规程，让全世界能从失败中吸取教训，避免其演变为灾难。
我们还需要在各国政府、关键基础设施运营方和技术专家之间建立安全渠道，以共享新发现的漏洞和新威胁。
显然，这些标准不应固化现有企业的优势，也不应偏袒任何一种商业模式。它们必须同时支持开放模型和闭源模型的开发者、新进入者和成熟实验室，并兼顾国家自主权与国际合作。各国政府应自行决定如何将这些标准纳入本国法律体系。但如果我们能在全球层面就何为可靠证据、有效防护和良好监督达成共识，所有人都将从中受益。
我们并非掌握所有答案，也非常愿意听取任何更好的想法。我们愿与各位携手合作，竭尽全力探索前进之路。
我们正站在十字路口。一条路通向这样的世界：权力高度集中，决策过程不透明，人们觉得这项一生中最重要的技术正强加于自己。另一条路则通向这样的世界：AI为人服务，因为人们通过民主制度参与决定并引导它如何发展；科学进步真正改善生活；更多人能够参与塑造未来；这项技术继续赋予个人和社区更大的力量，让他们按照自己的意愿生活。在这样的未来，潜能得以实现，处处充满振奋与惊喜。
我们相信，这样的未来值得我们共同建设。非常感谢。
