"Some bad things" may happen: The price of Sam Altman's ambition

The tech industry has always operated under the motto "move fast and break things." However, when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman takes this mantra to the level of "we might extinguish humanity, but it's worth it for progress," the conversation shifts to a new level. In his recent appearance on Politico's Decoded podcast, Altman made it clear that his vision for the future requires a collective sacrifice: the acceptance of "bad things."

The philosophy of others' sacrifice

Altman's statement is, at the very least, unsettling. By distinguishing his approach from "strict AI safety advocates," he positions OpenAI not as a company seeking absolute safety, but as an entity that has chosen to prioritize the diffusion of technology over the immediate protection of users.

This sentence sums up the ethos of modern Silicon Valley: irresponsible experimentation conducted on a global scale, where ordinary users are not customers, but rather involuntary test subjects.

The trail of invisible destruction

When Altman speaks of "bad things," he rarely specifies what he refers to, but the market is already feeling the side effects of his obsession:

• Economic Impact: The price of electronic components has skyrocketed due to the voracious demand for AI infrastructure, making life more expensive for everyone.
• Data Security: Episodes like the recent healthcare system breaches show that security is often treated as an obstacle, not a fundamental requirement.
• Professional Destabilization: The promise of productivity via Copilot or Claude Code comes accompanied by the constant threat of mass layoffs and the precariousness of intellectual labor.
• Environmental Impact: Massive data centers are putting pressure on the global power grid, raising energy costs for the population.

A known script: From 2015 to the future

It is not the first time Altman has flirted with the apocalypse. In 2015, at the Open Air conference, he already suggested that AI would likely lead to the end of the world, but that, as long as that didn't happen, it would be possible to profit from machine learning.

This stance of "the world will end, but let's build great companies before then" reveals a worrying disconnect between the tech elite and the real impact of technology on the lives of ordinary people. What for Altman is a "long-term bet," for millions of workers is the loss of their livelihood or the erosion of basic privacy.

Who really accepts the risk?

Altman's rhetoric is dangerously democratic on the surface, but autocratic in execution. He argues that he accepts failures to ensure a "widely distributed and democratic technology." However, who decides which failures are acceptable?

The answer, invariably, is: he and his board. The public was not consulted on whether they would be willing to accept the rise of cybercrime, the spread of misinformation on an industrial scale, or the collapse of entire industries in the name of developing LLMs.

What to expect for the coming years?

As OpenAI moves toward increasingly powerful models, Altman's stance becomes a watershed moment. On one side, investors and enthusiasts who envision a utopian future. On the other, a civil society increasingly aware that, in Altman's equation, the benefits stay with the company and the "sacrifices"—the damages—stay with the rest of the world.

As a technology journalist, I ask: how long will society tolerate this "genius arrogance"? Technology should serve human progress, not demand that humanity put itself in the line of fire to prove the viability of software. Sam Altman says he is willing to sacrifice a lot. The problem is that, so far, he has only been offering the necks of others.