- AI is not yet capable of making critical military decisions, says OpenAI chief Sam Altman
- Altman doubts AI was used directly in US special forces raid on Venezuela's capital
- AI can assist by analyzing large intelligence reports but has clear current limits
Artificial intelligence has not reached a level where it can make critical decisions in a military environment or take a call on making the best choice for warfighting, OpenAI chief Sam Altman told The Indian Express newspaper today.
He also described what he thought about the alleged use of an AI system for the daring raid by US special forces on Venezuela's capital Caracas to capture Nicolas Maduro.
"I don't think AI systems should be used to make warfighting decisions. I don't think they're at a level of sophistication or reliability where this is a good idea," the founder of the company that gave ChatGPT to the world said.
"That said, we certainly want to support the government, and there are a lot of things we can do already. Someday there will be really important applications of AI in defence. But right now the models have clear limitations," Altman said.
AI For Maduro's Capture?
"No, I just don't know," Altman replied to a question on whether any AI system was used to aid in the US operation.
"I'm sure it was used in some ways. There are things that AI can do a great job of today. I think using AI to analyse a huge amount of intelligence reports, probably a great use of AI, and maybe it was used in some ways like that," Altman said.
His comments align with what Chris Lehane, Chief Global Affairs Officer of OpenAI, said at the NDTV Ind.AI Summit earlier this week. To a question whether AI can go rogue, like how it is shown in the movies, Lehane had said, "I think where we come from is a little bit more of an optimistic view. I mean, we are realists. We do build all sorts of safety mechanisms into our models before they are publicly released, and I think one of the things that Sam [Altman] talks about, and you'll probably hear him talk about, is how does society start to build resilience out there."
A more grim picture was, however, shown by UC Berkeley professor Stuart Russell, who pointed out the world does not have an answer yet to what would happen to humanity if machines start 'thinking'.
"Some of the CEOs, pretty much all the leading CEOs, have admitted there is enormous risk to humanity. Privately, they will say, 'I wish I could stop'. The one person who said it publicly is Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic," Russell, who is also the president of the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI, and features among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025, had told NDTV.
"But I have heard similar things in private from the other CEOs, to the point where one of them said the scenarios are so grim that the best case would be a Chernobyl-scale disaster. Because that would get governments to regulate," he said.
Russell appealed to governments to recognise the risks of AI early on and protect their people.
"Look at what the risks are, and set acceptable levels of risk for each type of consequence that we might be considering," he said.
The Chernobyl disaster happened in April 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Pripyat, then Ukraine under the Soviet Union. The Chernobyl disaster is a cautionary tale about secrecy, governance, and the cost of ignoring safety protocols.
AI going rogue has been a major theme of Hollywood movies, the most prominent being Arnold Schwarzenegger-starrer 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day'.
In the recent film 'House of Dynamite' that tells the story of a nuclear missile attack on the US, the actors had hinted at AI-assisted launch systems.
