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Sam Altman wants you to know that the sky isn’t falling. At least not as fast as some of his peers have been predicting.
During a virtual conference on May 26, the OpenAI CEO addressed what has become one of the most anxiety-inducing questions in modern economics: will AI destroy your job? His answer was notably more measured than the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric that has dominated the conversation for the past few years.
The 25% problem
To understand Altman’s positioning, you need to understand who he’s distancing himself from. Dario Amodei, CEO of rival AI company Anthropic, has floated a probability of 10-25% that AI could lead to what the industry calls “p(doom),” essentially the chance of a catastrophic, world-ending outcome. Amodei has also warned that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years.
Altman isn’t buying it, or at least he’s not selling it anymore.
“I don’t think we’re going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about.”
What actually happened after ChatGPT
When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, predictions of mass displacement were everywhere. Altman acknowledged this gap between prediction and reality. Job losses in entry-level white-collar roles have been slower than anticipated. Not zero. Slower.
A messaging pivot
Altman’s comments fit into a broader pattern that became more visible in recent months. By August 2026, he was publicly criticizing the AI industry for failing to communicate the benefits of the technology to the public.
This is a notable shift for someone who has historically been among those sounding the alarm. Altman previously co-signed statements prioritizing AI extinction risk as a global priority, putting AI in the same conversational bucket as nuclear war and pandemics. Now he’s arguing the industry needs to talk more about what AI can do for people, not just what it might do to them.
What this means for the market
There’s also the matter of the gap between Altman and Amodei’s assessments. When two of the most informed people on the planet disagree this sharply about the risks of the technology they’re building, it tells you that uncertainty itself is the dominant variable. Amodei’s 10-25% doom probability and prediction of half of entry-level jobs vanishing within five years sits in stark contrast to Altman’s more relaxed outlook.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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