OpenAI's Sam Altman writes apology to community of Tumbler Ridge; CBC News, April 24, 2026

Andrew Kurjata , CBC News; OpenAI's Sam Altman writes apology to community of Tumbler Ridge

"Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has written a letter of apology to the community of Tumbler Ridge for failing to alert RCMP about the account of the Tumbler Ridge shooter.

The company shared the letter with the local news website Tumbler RidgeLines, which published it in full. Its authenticity was confirmed by a spokesperson for OpenAI...

Altman committed to authoring an apology after meeting with B.C. Premier David Eby and Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka at the beginning of March, but said he wanted to take some time before doing so in order to give the community the opportunity to "grieve in their own time."

He also acknowledged that his company should have alerted law enforcement about the account of the shooter, which was flagged for problematic activity in advance of the tragedy but was not escalated to alerting authorities in Canada...

Altman's company is being sued by one Tumbler Ridge family, who alleges the company "had specific knowledge of the shooter's long-range planning of a mass casualty event," but "took no steps to act upon this knowledge."

Apology 'necessary' but 'grossly insufficient': Eby

Eby also shared the letter on social media, writing "the apology is necessary, and yet grossly insufficient for the devastation done to the families of Tumbler Ridge."

A statement from the District of Tumbler Ridge released Friday afternoon acknowledged that Altman's letter "may evoke a range of emotions, and we encourage everyone to take the time and space they need.""

Sam Altman Wants to Know Whether You’re Human; The Atlantic, April 24, 2026

Will Gottsegen , The Atlantic; Sam Altman Wants to Know Whether You’re Human

And he has a way to prove it.

"As the CEO of OpenAI and the chairman of Tools for Humanity, Altman has a financial interest both in the products that create these dangers and in the ones that guard against them."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addresses Molotov cocktail attack on his home and AI backlash; Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2026

Queenie Wong , Los Angeles Times; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addresses Molotov cocktail attack on his home and AI backlash

"Hours after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at his San Francisco home, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman addressed the criticism surrounding artificial intelligence that appears to have been the impetus for the attack. 

In a lengthy blog post, Altman shared a family photo of his husband and child, stating he hopes it might convince people not to repeat the attack despite their opinions on him.

The San Francisco Police Department arrested a 20-year-old man in connection with the Friday morning attack but did not publicly comment on the motivation. Altman and his company, the maker of ChatGPT, have been at the center of a heated debate about whether AI will change the world for better or worse."

It’s finally happened: I’m now worried about AI. And consulting ChatGPT did nothing to allay my fears; The Guardian, April 8, 2026

Emma Brockes, The Guardian; It’s finally happened: I’m now worried about AI. And consulting ChatGPT did nothing to allay my fears

"I’ll confess: prior to this moment of giving the subject more than two seconds’ thought, my anxieties around AI were extremely localised. I thought in immediate terms of my own household income, and beyond that, of how the job market might look 10 years from now when my children graduate. I wondered if I should boycott ChatGPT, many of whose architects support Trump, and decided that, yes, I should – an easy sacrifice because I don’t use it in the first place.

Anything bigger than that seemed fanciful. Last year, when Karen Hao’s book Empire of AI was published, it laid out a case against Sam Altman and his company, OpenAI, that briefly pierced the tedium of the discourse to say that Altman’s leadership is cult-like and blind to cost – no different, in other words, to his tech predecessors, except much more dangerous. Still, I didn’t read the book.

The investigation this week in the New Yorker offers a lower-commitment on-ramp to the subject, while giving the casual reader an exciting opportunity: to ask ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot created by Altman’s OpenAI, to summarise the key findings of a piece that is highly critical of ChatGPT and Altman."

Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?; The New Yorker, April 6, 2026

 Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker; Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?

"Not all the tendencies that make chatbots dangerous are glitches; some are by-products of how the systems are built. Large language models are trained, in part, on human feedback, and humans tend to prefer agreeable responses. Models often learn to flatter users, a tendency known as sycophancy, and will sometimes prioritize this over honesty. Models can also make things up, a tendency known as hallucination. Major A.I. labs have documented these problems, but they sometimes tolerate them. As models have grown more complex, some hallucinate with more persuasive fabrications. In 2023, shortly before his firing, Altman argued that allowing for some falsehoods can, whatever the risks, confer advantages. “If you just do the naïve thing and say, ‘Never say anything that you’re not a hundred per cent sure about,’ you can get a model to do that,” he said. “But it won’t have the magic that people like so much.”"

OpenAI Backs Bill That Would Limit Liability for AI-Enabled Mass Deaths or Financial Disasters; Wired, April 9, 2026

MAXWELL ZEFF , Wired; OpenAI Backs Bill That Would Limit Liability for AI-Enabled Mass Deaths or Financial Disasters

The ChatGPT-maker testified in favor of an Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable—even in cases where their products cause “critical harm.”

"OPENAI IS THROWING its support behind an Illinois state bill that would shield AI labs from liability in cases where AI models are used to cause serious societal harms, such as death or serious injury of 100 or more people or at least $1 billion in property damage."

OpenAI Cancels Spicy “Adult Mode” Chatbot as Crisis Deepens; Futurism, March 26, 2026

Victor Tangermann , Futurism; OpenAI Cancels Spicy “Adult Mode” Chatbot as Crisis Deepens

"The company’s panicked executives have made it abundantly clear that distracting “side quests” must be abandoned, while doubling down on both enterprise and coding. The purported goal is to stuff all of its offerings into a single “super app,” taking a page out of xAI CEO Elon Musk’s playbook.

These aren’t empty words by OpenAI execs. First, news emerged this week that the company is killing its disastrous Sora video AI slop app, lighting what was supposed to be a groundbreaking $1 billion deal with Disney on fire.

Now, the company is axing its spicy “adult mode” chatbot, as the Financial Timesreports, once again highlighting how much pressure the company is under as competitors aren’t just catching up, but snatching up precious paying customers from right under its nose."

Quit ChatGPT: right now! Your subscription is bankrolling authoritarianism; The Guardian, March 4, 2026

Rutger Bregman, The Guardian ; Quit ChatGPT: right now! Your subscription is bankrolling authoritarianism

"OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on track to lose $14bn this year. Its market share is collapsing, and its own CEO, Sam Altman, has admitted it “screwed up” an element of the product. All it takes to accelerate that decline is 10 seconds of your time.

A grassroots boycott called QuitGPT has been spreading across the US and beyond, asking people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions. More than a million people have answered the call. Mark Ruffalo and Katy Perry have thrown their weight behind it. It is one of the most significant consumer boycotts in recent memory, and I believe it’s time for Europeans to join...

In contrast, cancelling ChatGPT is a piece of cake. You can do it in 10 seconds, and the alternatives are just as good or even better. History shows why #QuitGPT has so much potential: effective campaigns such as the 1977 Nestlé boycott and the 2023 Bud Light boycott were successful because they were narrow and easy. They had a clear target and people had lots of good alternatives.

The great boycotts of history did not succeed because millions of people suddenly became heroic activists. They succeeded because buying a different brand of coffee, or choosing a different beer, was something anyone could do on a Tuesday afternoon. The small act, repeated at scale, becomes a political earthquake.

Go to quitgpt.org. Cancel your subscription. Using the free version? Delete the app, because your conversations still feed the machine. Then try an alternative, and tell at least one person why.

OpenAI’s president bet $25m that you would not notice where your money was going, and that, even if you did, you would not care enough to spend 10 seconds switching to something else. Time to prove him wrong."

Anthropic’s Ethical Stand Could Be Paying Off; The Atlantic, March 7, 2026

 Ken Harbaugh, The Atlantic; Anthropic’s Ethical Stand Could Be Paying Off

"The events of the past week reminded me of my early days as a Navy pilot nearly three decades ago. One of my first tasks was to sign a document pledging never to surveil American citizens. By the time of the 9/11 attacks, I was an aircraft commander, leading combat-reconnaissance aircrews that gathered large-scale intelligence and informed battlefield targeting decisions. I took for granted that somewhere along those decision chains, a human being was in the loop.

I could not have defined artificial intelligence then, but I understood instinctively that a person, not a machine, would bear the weight of life-and-death choices. This was not a bureaucratic consideration. It was a hard line that those of us in uniform were expected to hold.

In the standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon, a private company was forced to hold the line against its own government. In doing so, Anthropic may have earned something more valuable than the contract it lost. In an industry where trust is the scarcest resource, Anthropic just banked a substantial deposit."

OpenAI, Anthropic, and the fog of AI war; Quartz, March 2, 2026

Jackie Snow, Quartz; OpenAI, Anthropic, and the fog of AI war

After Anthropic refused to bow to Trump administration demands, the Pentagon labeled it a supply-chain risk — yet bombed Iran while still using its tools

"The rupture between the administration and Anthropic is nominally about guardrails. The company said it refused to let its tools be used for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance and wouldn't budge when officials demanded blanket permission to use the technology in any lawful scenario. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company couldn’t agree in good conscience. Trump responded by calling Anthropic a “radical-left, woke company” that would never dictate how the military fights.

Within hours of the ban, OpenAI announced a new deal to deploy its models in classified Pentagon settings. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman disclosed a notable detail: The agreement includes the same prohibitions on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons that Anthropic had sought. The Pentagon, he wrote on X $TWTR 0.00%, “agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”

So the company that got blacklisted and the company that got rewarded appear to have secured functionally similar terms. The difference is most likely politics, or more precisely, the perception of obedience this administration seems to require from the private sector. OpenAI’s president gave $25 million to a pro-Trump super PAC last year. Anthropic hired Biden administration officials and lobbied for AI regulation."

The Pentagon strongarmed AI firms before Iran strikes – in dark news for the future of ‘ethical AI’; The Conversation, March 1, 2026

Bianca Baggiarini, Lecturer, International Relations, Deakin University, The Conversation ; The Pentagon strongarmed AI firms before Iran strikes – in dark news for the future of ‘ethical AI’

"In the leadup to the weekend’s US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the US Department of Defense was locked in tense negotiations with artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic over exactly how the Pentagon could use the firm’s technology.

Anthropic wanted guarantees its Claude systems would not be used for purposes such as domestic surveillance in the US and operating autonomous weapons without human control. 

In response, US president Donald Trump on Friday directed all US federal agencies to cease using Anthropic’s technology, saying he would “never allow a radical left, woke company to dictate how our great military fights and wins wars!”

Hours later, rival AI lab OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT) announced it had struck its own deal with the Department of Defense. The key difference appears to be that OpenAI permits “all lawful uses” of its tools, without specifying ethical lines OpenAI won’t cross.

What does this mean for military AI? Is it the end for the idea of “ethical AI” in warfare?"

'No ethics at all': the 'cancel ChatGPT' trend is growing after OpenAI signs a deal with the US military; TechRadar,March 1, 2026

David Nield , TechRadar ; 'No ethics at all': the 'cancel ChatGPT' trend is growing after OpenAI signs a deal with the US military

"After Claude developer Anthropic walked away from a deal with the US Department of War over safety and security concerns, OpenAI has decided to sign an agreement with the military – and ChatGPT users are far from happy about it.

As reported by Windows Central, a growing number of people are canceling their ChatGPT subscriptions and switching to other AI chatbots instead, including Claude. A quick browse of social media or Reddit is enough to see that there's a growing backlash to the move.

Some Redditors are posting guides to extracting yourself and your data from ChatGPT, while others are accusing OpenAI of having "no ethics at all" and "selling their soul" by agreeing to allow their AI models to be used by the US military complex."

OpenAI to work with Pentagon after Anthropic dropped by Trump over company’s ethics concerns; The Guardian, February 28, 2026

Adam Gabbatt and Dara Kerr, The Guardian; OpenAI to work with Pentagon after Anthropic dropped by Trump over company’s ethics concerns

CEO Sam Altman claims military will not use AI product for autonomous killing systems or mass surveillance

"OpenAI said it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to supply AI to classified US military networks, hours after Donald Trump ordered the government to stop using the services of one of the company’s main competitors.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, announced the move on Friday night. It came after an agreement between Anthropic, a rival AI company that runs the Claude system, and the Trump administration broke down after Anthropic sought assurances its technology would not be used for mass surveillance – nor for autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input.

Announcing the deal, Altman insisted that OpenAI’s agreement with the government included assurances that it would not be used to those ends.

“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote on X. He added that the Pentagon “agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement”.

Altman also said he hoped the Pentagon would “offer these same terms to all AI companies” as a way to “de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and toward reasonable agreements”."

OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash; The New York Times, February 27, 2026

Cade Metz , The New York Times; OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash

"OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, said on Friday that it had reached an agreement with the Pentagon to provide its artificial intelligence technologies for classified systems, just hours after President Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using A.I. technology made by rival Anthropic.

Under the deal, OpenAI agreed to let the Pentagon use its A.I. systems for any lawful purpose, a term required by the Pentagon. But OpenAI also said it had found a way to ensure that its technologies would adhere to its safety principles by installing specific technical guardrails on its systems."

ChatGPT creator must turn over 20M chat logs in copyright litigation, federal judge says; ABA Journal, January 8, 2026

 AMANDA ROBERT, ABA Journal; ChatGPT creator must turn over 20M chat logs in copyright litigation, federal judge says

"OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, must turn over 20 million chat logs in its copyright litigation with the New York Times and other news media, a federal judge ruled Monday."

AI psychosis is a growing danger. ChatGPT is moving in the wrong direction; The Guardian, October 28, 2025

Amandeep Jutla , The Guardian; AI psychosis is a growing danger. ChatGPT is moving in the wrong direction

[Kip Currier: Note this announcement that OpenAI's Sam Altman made on October 14. It's billionaire CEO-speak for "acceptable risk", i.e. "The level of potential losses a society or community considers acceptable given existing social, economic, political, cultural, technical, and environmental conditions." https://inee.org/eie-glossary/acceptable-risk 

Translation: Altman's conflict of interest-riven assessment that AI's benefits outweigh a corpus of evidence establishing increasingly documented risks and harms of AI to the mental health of young children, teens, and adults.]

[Excerpt]

"On 14 October 2025, the CEO of OpenAI made an extraordinary announcement.

“We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive,” it says, “to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues.”

As a psychiatrist who studies emerging psychosis in adolescents and young adults, this was news to me.

Researchers have identified 16 cases in the media this year of individuals developing symptoms of psychosis – losing touch with reality – in the context of ChatGPT use. My group has since identified four more. In addition to these is the now well-known case of a 16-year-old who died by suicide after discussing his plans extensively with ChatGPT – which encouraged them. If this is Sam Altman’s idea of “being careful with mental health issues”, that’s not good enough.

The plan, according to his announcement, is to be less careful soon. “We realize,” he continues, that ChatGPT’s restrictions “made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right. Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.”

“Mental health problems”, if we accept this framing, are independent of ChatGPT. They belong to users, who either have them or don’t. Fortunately, these problems have now been “mitigated”, though we are not told how (by “new tools” Altman presumably means the semi-functional and easily circumvented parental controls that OpenAI recently introduced)."