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，我們能以務實之道應對這兩方面的問題。在 OpenAI，我們以明確的目標看待這些問題：AI 應讓人們更能掌握自己的生活。讓人們更自由地按照自己的意願生活。讓人們更有能力解決大大小小的問題，並改善自己的社群。我們不想落入盲目樂觀的陷阱。我們也不想落入末日論的陷阱。陷入任何一種極端，都無助於我們成功化解眼前的挑戰；尤其此刻，世界與全人類正面臨極其艱鉅的難題，而這項技術能協助解決這些問題。因此，我們努力在這兩個極端之間走出一條中道。
對我們而言，這代表三項原則。
第一，隨著 AI 能力提升，人必須始終居於 AI 決策的核心。對齊並非抽象的研究問題。這項工作旨在確保這些系統始終可靠地受人類控制、反映人類價值觀，並協助人們引導下一階段的發展。我們並非企圖將人類的判斷或價值觀自動化，也絕不能這麼做。
第二，科學進步與經濟成長帶來的效益，必須由人民創造並為人民所用。AI 應協助研究人員取得發現、醫生治療病患、教師教導學生、創業者開辦公司，也應幫助社群解決過去看似遙不可及的問題，並實現更多可能。人類持續進步的歷程，並不是工具取代人類的自主行動。而是適當的工具能提升人的能力；我相信，未來的進展將遠超我們目前所能想像。
第三，這項技術必須賦予每個人力量。美好的未來，將來自人們發揮自身潛能，為自己、社群、國家乃至整個世界創造價值。我們或許是這項技術的建構者之一，但不是這個故事的英雄。我們的角色，是為世界各地的人們創造機會，並相信人類技能與才智所蘊含的神奇力量。
如今，我們已有能夠發現前所未知知識的模型。看看我們在數學領域取得的進展。三年前夏天，我們的模型勉強能應付小學數學。兩年前夏天，它們在高中數學競賽中已表現不俗。去年夏天，我們在最負盛名的國際數學競賽中達到了金牌水準。就在今年夏天幾週前，我們的一個模型解決了千禧年大獎難題之一：納維－斯托克斯方程式。
這些方程式應用於飛機設計、天氣預報及血流研究。我們解數學問題並非只為數學本身，而是為了讓人們有能力發現新知，運用這些知識改善醫療照護、提升生活水準，並拓展世界各地每個人的潛能。仍有太多事物等待我們探索。
但非常重要的是，企業不能取代民主程序。
若要讓 AI 符合民主原則，最重要的決策就不能只由舊金山的實驗室制定。這些決策必須透過民主程序，以及由向人民負責的政府共同塑造。
在國際層面，這需要各方合作。回顧歷史，有些彼此競爭、關係也未必融洽的國家，在面對強大的新技術時，仍會為了共同利益與集體福祉攜手合作。我們相信，現在正是這樣的時刻。
我們需要一套機制，讓國家與國際層級的前沿 AI 標準相輔相成，包括衡量能力、評估風險、判斷防護措施是否充分，以及在系統日益自主之際維持實質人類監督的標準。
我們需要共同標準，讓各國能比較證據、查核合規情況，並以共同語言和共識理解事態發展。
我們需要準確迅速的事件通報，以及分類與通報規範，讓全世界能從失敗中汲取教訓，避免其演變成災難。
我們也需要在各國政府、關鍵基礎設施營運方與技術專家之間建立安全管道，以分享新浮現的弱點與威脅。
當然，這些標準不應鞏固既有業者的地位，也不應偏袒任何一種商業模式。這些標準必須同時支持開放與封閉模型的開發者、新進業者與成熟實驗室，並兼顧國家自主權與國際合作。各國政府應自行決定如何將標準納入本國法律體系。但如果我們能在全球層面就何謂可靠的證據、完善的防護措施和有效的監督達成共識，所有人都將因此受益。
我們並非掌握所有答案，也非常樂意聽取任何更好的想法。我們已準備好與各位攜手合作，竭盡全力找出前進的道路。
我們正站在十字路口。一條路通往權力集中、決策不透明的世界，人們會覺得這項堪稱一生中最重要的技術，並非為他們所用，而是強加在他們身上。另一條路則通往這樣的世界：AI 為人民服務，因為人民透過民主制度參與決定其發展方向並加以引導；科學進步真正改善生活；更多人能參與塑造未來；而這項技術持續賦予個人與社群更大的力量，讓他們能按照自己的選擇生活。這是一個潛能得以實現、令人振奮且充滿驚奇的未來。
而我們相信，這樣的未來值得共同打造。非常感謝各位。
