Snover on Altman's "accept some bad things": right on the physics, wrong on the conclusion
dfinke · x · 2026-10-06
- Jeffrey Snover responds to Sam Altman's Politico remark that "the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology," which triggered hyperbolic backlash.
- Snover's take: Altman is right about the physics — AI is an unavoidably unsafe product; some harm is inherent and unforeseeable, like chef's knives or vaccines.
- But we never banned knives; nor did we shrug and "accept" their harms. "Accept" means the harm lands on whoever it lands on — that's a shrug, not a policy.
- Quoter dfinke adds the open question: when an agent does something harmful, who's on the hook — the builder, the model company, or the prompter?
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