OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said people are justified in feeling uneasy about artificial intelligence, while also arguing that they ought to place confidence in the companies developing it, according to BBC reporting published on Wednesday, 16 September 2026.
The remarks set two ideas side by side: that public apprehension about where AI is heading is reasonable, and that the firms at the centre of that work should be trusted. The BBC carried the comments as part of its coverage of the OpenAI boss.
The same reporting was picked up elsewhere, with Yahoo Finance UK framing Altman's position around the admission that control of the technology could be lost.
Altman's comments arrive as AI policy remains an active subject in Washington. OpenAI has published its own argument that a window for shaping AI rules is currently open and that lawmakers should use it. Politico, meanwhile, reported that leading AI companies have been calling for oversight, and examined why Congress may decline to provide it.
That combination — industry figures asking for supervision while warning about risk — forms the backdrop to Altman's BBC remarks. The tension between caution and confidence is central to how AI developers present themselves to regulators and the public alike.
What to watch next: whether Altman's call for trust is matched by concrete regulatory proposals, and whether lawmakers act while the policy window OpenAI describes remains open.