OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has published a blog post responding to both an apparent arson attack on his San Francisco home and a lengthy New Yorker investigation raising questions about his character and conduct.
Early on Friday, someone allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman's property in San Francisco, though no one was injured.
A suspect was subsequently arrested at OpenAI's headquarters, where he had been threatening to burn down the building, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Altman linked the attack to the New Yorker profile, written by journalists Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, which was published days earlier following interviews with more than 100 people familiar with his business conduct.
The piece portrayed Altman as possessing "a relentless will to power" that distinguished him even among prominent tech founders, and included an anonymous board member describing him as combining a strong desire to be liked with what they called "a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone."
Altman said he had been warned the article's publication "at a time of great anxiety about AI" could make things "more dangerous" for him, an assessment he said he had initially dismissed.
Addressing his own conduct, Altman acknowledged a tendency towards conflict-avoidance he said had "caused great pain for me and OpenAI," referencing his removal and swift reinstatement as chief executive in 2023.
He also described what he called a "ring of power" dynamic driving rivalry between AI companies, and argued the correct response was to share artificial intelligence technology broadly rather than seek to control it.
"We should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally," he said.