Sam Altman's remarks at the United Nations Security Council

Source: OpenAI · 2026-09-23

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

First, as AI becomes more capable, people must remain at the center of AI decision-making. Alignment is not an abstract research question. It is the work of ensuring that these systems reliably remain under human control, reflect human values, and help people guide the next stages of development. We are not trying to, and must not, automate human judgment, or human values.

Second, the benefits of scientific progress and economic growth must be by people and for people. AI should help researchers make discoveries, doctors treat patients, teachers teach students, entrepreneurs start companies, communities solve problems that felt out of reach, and much more. The continuous story of human progress is not that tools replace human agency. It is that the right tools make people more capable, and I believe this is going to go much further than we believe possible.

Third, this technology must empower people individually. A great future will come from people realizing their potential and building value for themselves, their communities, their countries, and the broader world. We might be one of the builders of this technology, but we are not the heroes of this story. Our role is to enable people all over the world and to trust in the magic of humanity’s skill and faculties.