OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns ChatGPT and other AI tools could be misused to create a COVID-style pandemic

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently raised his concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) tools could potentially be misused to engineer a pandemic on the scale of COVID-19. Speaking in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Altman said the growing capability of AI models in biology poses risks if not carefully managed. Sam Altman was answering Carlson’s question on “What are the downsides of AI” when he said that these models are becoming "very good at bio (biology)" and may enable the engineering of a pandemic.


“You know, engineer another COVID-style pandemic, I worry about that,” Altman said. “But because we worry about it, I think we, and many others in the industry, are thinking hard about how to mitigate it.”


Sharing an example of how large language models (LLMs) could impact society, Altman said “This is like a silly example, but it's one that struck me recently LLMs like ours (ChatGPT) model and others have a kind of a certain style to them. They talk in a certain rhythm and they have a little unusual diction…. And I noticed recently that real people have picked that up. And that was an example for me…if you have enough people talk in the same language model, and it actually does cause a change in societal scale behavior.”


He added, “Did I think that ChatGPT was going to make people use way more em dashes in real life? Certainly not. It's not a big deal, but it's an example of where there can be these unknown unknowns of this is just like, this is a brave new world.”


Experts have previously cautioned that AI tools could accelerate biological research by generating new protein structures or simulating genetic engineering processes. While these capabilities have potential for drug discovery and medical innovation, they also create risks if such knowledge is weaponized.

Sam Altman on Suchir Balaji’s death

During the conversation, Sam Altman also discussed death of OpenAI researcher and whistleblower Suchir Balaji. Carlson asked Altman: “Do you think he committed suicide?”. To this, OpenAI CEO replied “I really do”, adding, “He was like a friend of mine. This is like a guy that, not a close friend, but this is someone that worked at Open AI for a very long time. I was really shaken by this tragedy. I spent a lot of time trying to, you know, read everything I could as I'm sure you and others did too about what happened. It looks like a suicide to me."