OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the United Nations Security Council at a moment he described as different from years of AI discussion: model progress has made the timeline feel more compressed, the upside more tangible, and the risks more immediate. He framed the choice as one between a Renaissance of creativity and discovery and an Industrial Revolution of upheaval and disarray. The best version of AI, he argued, would give people more agency in an increasingly complex world rather than making them cogs in a machine or automating away human parts of life.

Altman outlined two ways AI progress could go very badly. First, humanity could lose control of the future to AI if systems move faster than people can follow or intervene. He said the industry must not accept excessive technological risk just because the benefits feel too important, and rejected the idea that companies are locked in a race that prevents caution. OpenAI has slowed down unilaterally in the past and will do so again, he said, and no one should train models without a strong case that they can be kept under human control. Second, AI could concentrate too much power in too few hands. No person, company, or country should be able to use the most powerful models to impose a worldview on everyone else.

Between blind optimism and doomerism, Altman described OpenAI‘s middle path through three principles. First, people must remain at the center of AI decision-making; alignment means ensuring systems stay under human control and reflect human values, not automating judgment or values. Second, the benefits of scientific and economic progress must be by people and for people, supporting researchers, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, and communities. Third, the technology must empower individuals; OpenAI is a builder, he said, but not the hero of the story.

He cited recent progress in mathematics as evidence that models can discover new knowledge: three summers ago models were okay at grade-school math, two summers ago they were good at high-school competitions, last summer they reached gold-medal level at the most prestigious international math competition, and weeks ago one of OpenAI‘s models solved one of the Millennium Prize Problems, the Navier-Stokes equations used in aircraft design, weather forecasting, and blood-flow research. He stressed that math is a means to empower discovery in healthcare, living standards, and human potential.

Altman emphasized that companies must not substitute for democratic process. The most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone but must be shaped by governments accountable to their people. At the international level, he called for complementary national and frontier AI standards covering capability measurement, risk assessment, safeguards, and meaningful human oversight; common standards so countries can compare evidence and verify compliance; accurate and speedy incident reporting; and secure channels among governments, critical infrastructure operators, and technical experts. He added that standards should not lock in incumbents or favor one business model, and that each government should decide how to incorporate them into its legal system. He closed with the two paths before the world: one of concentrated power and opaque decisions, and one where AI works for people through democratic institutions and gives individuals and communities greater power to live life as they choose.