Sam Altman Warns Giving AI 'Religious Force' Could Be a 'Real Safety Issue:' 'Very Uncomfortable'
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Saturday he is "very uncomfortable" with efforts to elevate artificial intelligence into something akin to a deity. He also argued that treating models as a substitute for human decision-making creates its own kind of safety risk.
Altman Calls it a ‘Real Safety Issue’
Altman made the remarks in a post on X that reported concerns about people "trying to ascribe religious force or a surrender of human judgment to AI models." He added that he thinks that "it is a real safety issue."
Anthropic’s Outreach
The comments came days after a New York Times report detailed Anthropic‘s private meetings with religious scholars to discuss questions surrounding AI consciousness, morality and how Claude should behave.
According to the report, Anthropic cofounder Chris Olah held private sessions with religious figures and raised questions about how advanced systems should develop values as they become more capable and independent. "How do you help them be stable? How do you help them to mature? How do you help them be, you know, deeply moral?" Olah told the Times.
Altman’s post also arrived shortly after OpenAI safety leader David Robinson left the company and criticized its approach to risk management. The timing added to existing scrutiny over how AI labs handle safety as capabilities accelerate.
In April, representatives from Meta, Google and Amazon met in Rome to discuss child protection in an AI-heavy world and briefly met Pope Leo XIV.
"If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a ‘paradise of machines’ invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good," Pope Leo XIV said in remarks to diplomats in September.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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