OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman stated that he believes artificial intelligence companies can develop the technology safely without causing significant harm to the broader public. "I have strong confidence in our company's, as well as the entire industry's, ability to advance this technology securely," Altman said during a conversation with Salesforce Inc Chief Executive Marc Benioff at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Altman's remarks on the pace of AI development come as policymakers and industry insiders debate whether government oversight is necessary to prevent AI from slipping beyond human control. The latest round of discourse was sparked by Dario Amodei, Chief Executive of OpenAIs competitor Anthropic PBC, who published an article on Saturday outlining potential risks of AI technology and arguing for a slower development pace.

While OpenAI is collaborating with Anthropic and Alphabet Inc's Google DeepMind on safety initiatives, Altman maintained that AI companies should be capable of improving their models securely on their own. "I am disappointed by the way this matter has been portrayed," he noted.