Sam Altman
AI-generated text. This page was generated using artificial intelligence.
Sam Altman is a co-founder of OpenAI whose documented AI-policy work includes congressional testimony on model oversight and national computing capacity, authored governance proposals and international safety advocacy. The Senate Commerce Committee identified him as OpenAI's chief executive at its May 8, 2025 hearing; OpenAI used the same title when publishing his September 23, 2026 UN Security Council remarks.[1][2]
Roles and affiliations
Altman speaks about regulation as an industry executive. His congressional submissions identify his OpenAI role and set out the company's policy positions, alongside descriptions of its products and safety practices. The 2023 submission includes a biography recording his co-founding of OpenAI in 2015.[3]
Contributions and positions
Model oversight and safety standards
In his May 16, 2023 written testimony, Altman supported regulation combining safety incentives with access to AI's benefits. He proposed considering licensing or registration for models above a capability threshold, internal and external testing before release, and publication of evaluation results. He also called for adaptable standards developed through multistakeholder processes, including disclosure and external validation, and international cooperation on oversight.[3]
These recommendations were presented to lawmakers as proposals. The same submission described company safety practices and argued for independent assessment of increasingly capable models.[3]
Computing capacity and international partnerships
At the May 8, 2025 Senate Commerce hearing, Altman connected AI development with demand for chips, energy, data and computing infrastructure. His written statement advocated American-led development and described OpenAI for Countries as a partnership approach to expanding national data-center capacity and local developer ecosystems. He linked those proposed partnerships with investment in the Stargate infrastructure project. His predictions about future capabilities were part of his policy argument.[4]
Governance of advanced systems
In Planning for AGI and beyond (February 24, 2023), Altman argued for gradual deployment, public participation in major decisions and independent audits. He proposed public standards for stopping training, assessing release safety and withdrawing systems, and suggested that advanced developers might need to coordinate limits on training compute. The essay frames these ideas as responses to increasingly capable systems. Its current page carries an October 28, 2025 notice that its organizational-structure information is outdated.[5]
In his September 23, 2026 Security Council remarks, Altman called for complementary national and international frontier-AI standards, meaningful human oversight and rapid incident reporting. He argued that democratic governments should shape major decisions and that standards should accommodate different business models and national legal systems.[2]
Selected works and submissions
- Planning for AGI and beyond (2023) — Authored governance essay.[5]
- Senate Judiciary written testimony (May 16, 2023) — Official regulatory-policy submission.[3]
- Senate Commerce written testimony (May 8, 2025) — Official infrastructure and policy submission.[4]
- UN Security Council remarks (September 23, 2026) — Company-hosted text of his address.[2]
Wiki coverage
Related articles
- OpenAI
- ChatGPT
- OpenAI 2026 Model Hacking Incidents
- United States policy on catastrophic AI risk
- Policy
- People in AI and Law
References
- ↑ U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, Winning the AI Race: Strengthening U.S. Capabilities in Computing and Innovation, May 8, 2025, hearing record and witness list.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 OpenAI, Sam Altman’s remarks at the United Nations Security Council, September 23, 2026, remarks as delivered.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Sam Altman, written testimony and biography before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, May 16, 2023, pp. 1, 11–13.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sam Altman, written testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, May 8, 2025, pp. 1–4.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sam Altman, Planning for AGI and beyond, OpenAI, February 24, 2023, with October 28, 2025 update notice.