Takeaways from 'Hard Fork' interview with OpenAI's Altman

Sam Altman, the chief executive of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, said on Tuesday that he has had productive talks with US President Donald Trump about AI and credited him with understanding the geopolitical and economic importance of the technology.

- NATALLIE ROCHA

“I think he really gets it,” Mr Altman said. He added, “I think he really understands the importance of leadership in this technology.”

Mr Altman, 40, made his remarks about Trump during a live interview in San Francisco with Hard Fork, the tech podcast from The New York Times.

Over the 30-minute conversation, Mr Altman and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, discussed Al's effect on jobs, the grab for technological talent by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and regulatory and safety concerns about the fast-evolving and powerful technology.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.)

ON PRESIDENT TRUMP

Mr Altman has made it a point to forge a relationship with Trump. The day after the president's inauguration in January, Mr Altman stood behind Trump in the White House's Roosevelt Room as Trump announced a $100 billion Al infrastructure deal, called Stargate, which was backed by Openal, SoftBank and Oracle. Trump described it as the “largest Al infrastructure project by far in history.”

On Tuesday, Mr Altman said Trump understood AI and “the potential for economic transformation, sort of geopolitical importance, the need to build a lot of infrastructure.”

EFFECT ON EMPLOYMENT