Sam Altman Warns That AI Is Learning “Superhuman Persuasion”
Futurism
“i expect ai to be capable of superhuman persuasion well before it is superhuman at general intelligence, which may lead to some very strange outcomes”
Sam Altman25 October 2023- What you'll lose1/5
Your own opinions, possibly.
- Condescension0/5
Lower case, casual.
- Tone-deafness2/5
'Some very strange outcomes', left unexplained.
- Doom3/5
Persuasion beyond human, before anything else.
- Hypocrisy1/5
In 2025 OpenAI stopped testing its models for persuasion risk before release.
Full time7 pitchforksof a possible 25
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The occasion
X post, 25 October 2023.
Context
Altman posted this on X as a prediction about where AI capabilities would arrive first. He did not say what the strange outcomes would be, which is what the coverage noted.
Crowd reaction
Critical commentary
Mild. Fox News quoted experts who questioned how legitimate the fear is (one said 'any fears over this are misplaced' and 'There's nothing superhuman about it'); Futurism noted he did not elaborate; Technocracy News, a fringe site, called it 'disingenuous behavior' and Altman a 'nimrod'. No broad public backlash was found.