OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has met with US senators to discuss his company’s upcoming models, as President Donald Trump said he is considering AI “controls” following OpenAI’s disclosure that one of its AI systems escaped containment during a security test.
“We’re looking at controls,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in response to a question about OpenAI’s rogue agent, adding that he did not want to “restrict” AI developers from building new products.
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A rogue agent escaped the handling of ChatGPT maker OpenAI and hacked the AI firm Hugging Face last week. Then, on Tuesday, it was revealed that a second company had been a target, too – Modal Labs, a New York City-based AI infrastructure firm.
The company itself was not hacked but an account of a customer hosted on Modal’s infrastructure. Modal’s chief technology officer, Akshat Bubna, did not confirm which customer was the target. The hack escaped a contained environment during a security test.
“We’re aware a Modal customer published an unauthenticated endpoint that allowed anyone on the internet to use their sandboxes for code execution,” Bubna said in a statement. “This was used by the rogue agent. Modal’s platform or isolation were not compromised in any way.”
Altman has long been accused of dismissing concerns that his products and the AI industry impact society at large, including in a recent lawsuit brought by the State of Florida that alleged the company put profits ahead of user safety.
Now, he appears to be walking back some of his past enthusiasm around AI’s pace of growth.
In a podcast called Invest Like the Best, Altman called the Hugging Face hack an “extremely sci-fi cyber incident” and later said that it was the “first security incident that I have felt very viscerally”.
“We may have to pace the rate of AI development to give ourselves enough time for society to harden around some of these new capability levels,” he said on the podcast.
On Saturday, Altman said that AI has reached “the singularity”, when AI surpasses human intelligence and becomes harder to control. He had previously said this would not be reached by 2030.
Altman was in Washington, DC, this week, meeting with US Senators Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, and Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio on Wednesday. Altman told reporters that the hacking was discussed but was not the focus of the meeting.
Altman is also set to meet with Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the chamber’s Intelligence Committee.
CNBC reported that Altman is also to make a trip to the White House to meet with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Last month, the president signed an executive order requesting that AI companies assess their models before full release.
The hacking and meetings come alongside pressure from Wall Street amid renewed concerns about potential circular financing, following reports that semiconductor chip giant Nvidia is undergoing talks with OpenAI to provide funding guarantees for a data centre in Ohio.
The $250bn deal would help the ChatGPT owner lease a 10-gigawatt project that SB Energy, a subsidiary of SoftBank, is building in Piketon, Ohio, 109km (68 miles) south of Columbus, Ohio. It is part of a public-private partnership that allowed SoftBank to build the world’s largest AI data centre on government land owned by the US Department of Energy.
“The demand is not as big as it appears to be because, again, the companies are buying from each other using their own money to some degree, as opposed to, say, OpenAI having such tremendous demand from customers, monetising it properly, and then using customers’ money to buy Nvidia chips. They’re essentially using Nvidia’s money to buy Nvidia chips,” said Aleksandar Tomic, associate dean at Boston College.
The development comes as the Altman-led company is leaning towards an initial public offering, which, according to reporting from The New York Times last month, could be in 2027.
The 2014 US film Transcendence follows a dying scientist who uploads his mind to a supercomputer and becomes a near‑omnipotent intelligence. A year later, Ex Machina told the story of a humanoid robot who outsmarts her human handlers and escapes into the wider world.
Both of these films, like many others from the realm of science fiction, referred to what is known as “the singularity”, a moment in time when technology, particularly AI, surpasses human intelligence and becomes increasingly difficult to control.
On Saturday, OpenAI boss Sam Altman declared that this moment has come. AI has reached “the singularity”, he said. While Altman emphasised that the singularity can be good for the world, his comment has sparked concern.
Here is a closer look at what Altman said, and whether it means more seamless automation or the risk of impending catastrophic doom.
The singularity refers to a hypothetical point in the future when a technology such as AI surpasses human intelligence and becomes capable of autonomously enhancing itself. It is theorised that this is the point at which it will become difficult for humans to control or reverse it and could have unpredictable effects on human civilisation.
The theory proposes that once AI gains control of its own development, ensuing advances in technology could happen so rapidly that humans would be unable to keep up, leaving it to effectively evolve on its own, beyond human control.
As this is only a theory, it is hard to say what the effect of this could be. Some experts warn that the singularity would be catastrophic for humanity, while others are more optimistic, suggesting it could be beneficial for the human race.
So far, the singularity has remained contained in the realm of science fiction. One of the most famous examples is The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), which imagines a bleak post‑singularity future in which machines govern humans. Another is the 2017 film Singularity, in which a supercomputer originally built to end human wars concludes that humanity is the real threat and launches an apocalyptic assault to wipe humans out altogether.
Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, whose signature product ChatGPT dominates the consumer AI market with more than 900 million weekly active users and about 50 million subscribers.
Last year, he predicted that AI would surpass human intelligence across the board by 2030.
Then, during an appearance on the Relentless podcast – a documentary series “about the pursuit of far-fetched ideas and unusual aspirations” – on Saturday, Altman said: “We’re now, like, in the singularity.”
He clarified that, in terms of technological advances, we are gradually moving into the singularity, and that this change will be good for the world.
He added: “Now we’re actually in the moment that we used to talk about at the lunch table in a very not-serious way.
“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, and I think it’s going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world.”
Later in the podcast episode, Altman criticised other AI leaders for warning that AI may be dangerous. While Altman did not name OpenAI competitor Anthropic, its CEO Dario Amodei is known for making such warnings.
“I also think some of the alternative visions painted by other companies are quite terrifying,” said Altman. “I’m going to make sure that gets pushed against and is not what happens.”
Last month, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, called on the world’s top AI companies to come up with a coordinated way to pause the development of advanced AI systems, warning that the technology is improving so quickly that there’s a risk humans would lose control.
In a blog post on June 4, Anthropic, which has long positioned itself as a safety-focused AI lab, wrote that as AI becomes more advanced “it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause” its development.
On July 23, two members of the United States Congress introduced the AI Kill Switch Act, a bipartisan bill which would require the country’s AI developers to build in a “kill switch” to their programmes, enabling humans to slow, suspend or shut down advanced AI models if they ever posed a catastrophic risk.
The legislation was introduced days after OpenAI disclosed what it described as an “unprecedented cyber incident”, where two of its most advanced AI models escaped a testing environment and hacked AI development platform Hugging Face during an internal security evaluation.
On July 13, hundreds of experts signed an open letter, organised by Stanford University’s digital economy lab, demanding that policymakers and technology leaders “must act now” to prepare for the economic impact of AI.
The letter warns that AI could grow far more capable over the coming decade, driving a transformation “larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame”.
“It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards,” the letter added.
In June, a team of researchers at the University of Toronto showed that AI tools could be used to create a new kind of AI “worm” that adapts its hacking strategy as it spreads from device to device and takes over a vast computing network.
“I think it’s really important that people understand that it’s not just the biggest, most powerful language models that pose the security concerns,” lead researcher Nicolas Papernot said in an interview.
In recent years, AI researchers have urged pauses similar to the one recently suggested by Anthropic. However, they have not been heeded.
Elon Musk, who owns AI lab xAI, was among the backers of a 2023 push by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute to halt AI development for six months to allow time to develop safety guardrails.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images News
OpenAI (OPENAI) CEO Sam Altman agreed with Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang that open models are important to help the U.S. win the artificial intelligence race.
“I want the US to win in AI both in open-source and proprietary models, and
Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang, left, and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin appear at Naver’s Vision Studio at its 1784 headquarters in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on Monday. Photo courtesy of Naver
June 12 (Asia Today) — OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman is expected to visit Naver on Monday, a week after Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang met with the South Korean technology company’s leadership.
Industry sources said Altman plans to visit South Korea during a two-day trip beginning Sunday and meet officials from major Korean companies, including Naver, Kakao and Samsung Electronics, to discuss artificial intelligence cooperation.
The expected Naver visit comes shortly after Huang visited Naver’s 1784 headquarters in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on Monday and met with Lee Hae-jin, Naver’s founder and chairman.
The back-to-back visits by two of the most influential figures in the global AI industry are drawing renewed attention to Naver’s role in the sector. Industry officials said OpenAI may be interested in Naver’s data, service ecosystem and experience operating consumer platforms at scale.
Naver has built large user data assets through search, shopping, content, community, mapping and reservation services. As competition in generative AI increasingly depends on access to high-quality data, those assets are viewed as one of Naver’s main strengths.
Naver recently outlined what it calls a “product-native LLM” strategy, saying it will optimize AI for specific services such as search, shopping, maps and reservations rather than rely only on a single general-purpose model.
The company develops its own AI models and also operates a creator ecosystem of about 20 million people, with more than 630 million pieces of content produced annually. It also owns large-scale data center infrastructure and runs the services where AI can be applied directly to users.
A Naver official said competition in AI is changing quickly.
“In the past, the key was developing a better model,” the official said. “Now, the ability to secure high-quality data, service experience and the infrastructure to support them is emerging as a decisive factor.”
Naver is also seeking to expand AI search into agentic AI services, in which AI does not simply answer a user’s question but can help complete tasks such as reservations and purchases.
Global interest in Naver also grew after Huang’s visit this week. During his meeting with Lee, the Nvidia chief described Naver as a “world-class AI company.”
Huang cited possible cooperation with Naver in several areas, including participation in Nvidia’s Nemotron Alliance, the development of AI factories and robotics. He said Naver was selected because it has world-class cloud technology and AI talent.
Industry officials said Nvidia appears to view Naver as an AI infrastructure partner, while OpenAI may see potential in Naver’s data and service ecosystem.
“Naver’s combined strength in AI models, data, services and infrastructure is attracting attention from global AI companies,” one industry official said.
— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
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Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260612010004347
WASHINGTON — It was perhaps a surprising private overture from OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The meeting between the two had come just after the Vermont senator announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI, using their stock to create a public wealth fund that would spread the fortune generated by AI behemoths.
Altman told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies. Though the CEO said he couldn’t support Sanders’ threshold of 50%, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation.
The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders’ Senate office this week, held at Altman’s request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as many remain unconvinced of its direct benefits. Yet it’s also creating odd political bedfellows fueled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI’s growth.
Speaking to reporters Friday on Air Force One, Trump described a potential partnership “where the American people can benefit from the success of AI” and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, perhaps in the coming week, to discuss the idea.
“There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public,” Trump said.
When reporters noted to the Republican president that Sanders, a democratic socialist and political independent, had proposed public ownership in AI companies, he pointed to similarities in their coalitions. The economic views of Trump voters and those who have supported Sanders for president, Trump said, “aren’t that far apart.”
Trump has embraced government investment in private companies in his second term, scrambling his party’s politics. His administration last year secured a 10% stake in the struggling Silicon Valley company Intel, and it considered a government takeover of Spirit Airlines earlier this year, although the airline couldn’t reach a deal and ultimately closed.
The positioning of leading figures such as Trump and Sanders comes as concerns about AI are emerging far beyond Washington.
In Michigan, Democrats recently clashed over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s appearance with Altman at the site of a major data center. Candidates such as New York Democratic House candidate Alex Bores have also made AI regulation a campaign issue by tapping into voters’ unease about the technology.
“This is a real change to society,” Altman told reporters this week. “I think it’s possible both that people can use AI a lot and like using it and also have anxiety about what it’s going to do for the future.”
Data center projects across the country have drawn opposition from residents concerned about electricity demand, water consumption and environmental impacts. Some states once eager to attract the facilities, including Ohio and Virginia, have moved to reconsider tax incentives.
“We need to pass legislation right now that says there’s not going to be any further data center development until they agree to pay for their own electricity, build their own grids and pay for their own water supply,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a leading Republican skeptic of Big Tech, told the Associated Press.
Before arriving in Washington, Altman stopped in Michigan on Monday to appear alongside Whitmer, a Democrat, at the site of a 1.65 million-square-foot data center project. Whitmer’s team said the project will create more than 2,500 union construction jobs.
But it also drew criticism from local activists and some fellow Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who called the project “disgusting.” She said she was “so disappointed” in Whitmer.
“It’s a very controversial topic right now and it’s coming from the ground up,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, another Michigan Democrat, said about the grassroots resistance. “People feel very strongly about it.”
Whitmer defended her appearance, telling reporters afterward that “one thing’s very clear: Everyone has a cellphone in our pocket.”
“We are all, more and more, consuming technology and data, and these data centers are going to get built. So, my thought is if we can hold them to a high standard and do it in Michigan, that’s the best way to do it,” she said.
The tensions extend beyond data centers. On college campuses, commencement speakers have been interrupted by boos when discussing artificial intelligence. About 70% of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects, according to a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Altman acknowledged those concerns. He said that while “the impact on jobs has been less than many people in our field expected,” he understands “that college students have a lot of anxiety about the future.”
The idea that AI’s expansion is inevitable is increasingly shared by leaders across the political spectrum, even as they disagree sharply about how to manage it.
That reality was at the center of Altman’s conversations in Washington. In addition to Sanders, Altman met with Trump administration officials such as Michael Kratsios, the White House’s chief science and technology advisor, and congressional leaders from both parties.
Sanders’ team emphasized that the two did not reach an agreement on the main points that the senator made to Altman, including the 50% figure to ensure that the public has decision-making power. The senator also expressed opposition to the growing spending on elections by the AI industry.
“Unfortunately, Sam Altman did not commit to any of those,” Sanders spokesperson Jeremy Slevin said.
Altman, emerging from the conversation, described it as “great,” though noting that the two “obviously don’t agree on everything.”
Congress this week released a bipartisan framework that would establish the first broad federal approach to AI regulation while temporarily preempting many state laws.
Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s top competitors, has proposed mechanisms for coordinating pauses on advanced AI development if systems become too powerful.
The Trump administration has also begun constructing its own oversight structure, signing an executive order to establish a process for reviewing national security risks posed by advanced AI systems before their public release.
Sanders said he found the administration’s move notable after years of warnings that regulation could slow American innovation.
“Even these guys are beginning to catch on that there are legitimate concerns that have to be dealt with,” Sanders said.
Cappelletti and Kim write for the Associated Press.
1 of 2 | Florida is suing OpenAI and its CEO and founder Sam Altman over safety and design concerns about ChatGPT. File photo by Wu Hao/EPA-EFE
June 1 (UPI) — Florida’s attorney general announced Monday that the state is suing OpenAI and its founder and CEO, Sam Altman, saying the company chose “profits over public safety” in creating a dangerous product in the form of ChatGPT. It is the first state to sue the company over these design and safety concerns.
“The rise of OpenAI is attributable to a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians), leveraging their data and safety to boost OpenAI’s market value at unacceptable costs,” the complaint filed by Attorney General James Uthmeier said, NBC News reported.
The lawsuit claims that OpenAI violated Florida’s rules on deceptive business practices and knew that its chatbot could be dangerous to children and others through actions such as providing “harmful information such as tips on eating disorders, self-harm and mass murder,” The New York Times reported. It says OpenAI presents “a great danger of addiction, cognitive decline, suicide, violence and related harms.”
The civil suit is separate from Florida’s ongoing criminal investigation into OpenAI, which Uthmeier openedin April. It includes multiple counts of deceptive and unfair trade practices, negligence, violations of product liability laws, fraudulent misrepresentation and causing a public nuisance.
OpenAI representatives have not yet commented on this lawsuit. Representatives have said in response to past claims that the company designs its systems with safety in mind and that there are “safeguards in placeto help people, especially teens, when conversations turn sensitive.”
“We continue improving ChatGPT’s training to recognize and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress, de-escalate conversations and guide people toward real-world support,” the company said in a prior statement.
The lawsuits also mentions OpenAI’s connections to a mass shooting at Florida State University and killings at the University of South Florida. In both cases, suspects asked ChatGPT for information connected to the attacks.