San Francisco's OpenAI won't go public amid fears about AI safety and security

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the San Francisco company will not go public this year amid heightened fears about artificial intelligence safety and security.

It was all spurred by a viral social media post from Jacob Coxon, a former employee at leading AI firm Anthropic, who warned that the rapid development of AI could lead to the extinction of humankind by the end of the decade.

In an interview with "Meet The Press" Sunday, Coxon reiterated his concerns.

“You’re building a human level or super human level mind without understanding what it wants or thinks or the way it thinks, and I think that intrinsically should be quite scary,” he said.

In an interview with Fortune Magazine on Saturday, Altman said the San Francisco AI giant will not go public this year.

“We understand the magnitude of the responsibility on us," he said. "We understand what could go wrong. There are decisions we should not be able to make, there are risks we should not be able to incur on behalf of humanity.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a new essay, “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.”

However, President Donald Trump expressed concerns about an AI slowdown.

“We’re leading China in AI, we’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins," he said. "We can put guardrails. We can do this and that.”

Last week, former President Barrack Obama said AI could be dangerous if more isn’t done and urged Democrats to prioritize AI controls.