Altman Tells Politico the World ‘Should Accept Some Bad Things’ From AI — the Daylight With Anthropic Is Narrower Than It Sounds

Sam Altman picked an awkward week to argue for tolerating harm, and he did it anyway. In an interview for Politico’s new Decoded newsletter, conducted by senior tech reporter Brendan Bordelon, the OpenAI chief said: “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”

Asked where he diverges from Anthropic and Dario Amodei, Altman said, “I think there’s a lot of daylight.” Politico’s Forecast newsletter rendered it as “clear daylight.” Read in full, though, the gap is about everyday harms and who controls access, not catastrophe, and it sits on top of a policy record that has been converging.

What he said

Per the text of Politico’s Decoded article as republished by Jingletree (credited to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network), Altman said he understands, but disagrees with, the view that the technology is so dangerous “that a single lab in San Francisco should have it and make sure nothing bad happens, and kind of figure out how to dole out the benefits,” calling that “a completely unacceptable tradeoff” at odds with OpenAI’s “lighter touch regulatory stance.” He added: “I wouldn’t take a trade of saying like, ‘We’ll make sure there’s no major hacks, there’s no kind of like misuse of this technology, there’s zero scams’ … Because I think people will do tremendously — orders of magnitude more — good stuff than bad stuff.”

Then the qualifier: he does not accept “the really catastrophic risks,” including “a serious loss of control to AI.” Bordelon, in Politico’s Forecast, called that “a pretty critical distinction” and the point where Altman sees himself “very much in alignment with Anthropic.”

Where the daylight actually is

The Decoded article itself notes the convergence: Altman agreed with Amodei’s call last month to slow development of the most advanced models; OpenAI has followed Anthropic in endorsing stricter state safety laws; and its lobbyists recently backed a bipartisan House proposal to embed outside safety evaluators at top AI companies. Both companies signed the White House frontier accord days earlier.

So the remaining disagreement, on Altman’s own account, is narrower: how much routine misuse (hacks, scams) to accept in exchange for broad access, and whether concentrating frontier capability is itself the bigger risk. Bordelon read the remarks as preparing the public for more incidents, saying Altman “has already told us this is not the end of the disclosures for autonomous OpenAI hacks.” That lands while OpenAI is still notifying organizations about its own agents.

Limits

• Politico’s Decoded article page blocked our fetches; Altman’s Decoded quotes are from Jingletree’s full-text republication, which credits the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, cross-checked against Politico’s Forecast newsletter, which we read directly.
• Forecast says “clear daylight”; the Decoded text quotes “a lot of daylight.” We use the Decoded wording as Altman’s and note both.
• Anthropic had not responded publicly in the material inspected.
• The full interview, including remarks on legal liability for OpenAI’s agent incidents, was slated for Decoded’s Monday launch edition and podcast and is not covered here.

Sources

• Politico Forecast: Sam Altman exclusive: Bad things will happen (Jack Blanchard, October 4, 2026)
• Jingletree (republication of Politico Decoded, credited to Axel Springer Global Reporters Network): Sam Altman said ‘the world should accept some bad things happening’ for the benefits of AI (October 2026)
• Politico: Sam Altman to Decoded: ‘The world should accept some bad things happening’ for the benefits of AI (October 4, 2026; not directly accessible)