· May 22, 2023
Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever argue at OpenAI for superintelligence governance
Markdown · JSON · Original source
authors , and Ilya Sutskever published this argument on May 22, 2023. They say it is time to prepare for , which they describe as future AI systems dramatically more capable than even . They argue that such systems could bring great prosperity but also pose existential risk, so governance should not wait until risks emerge. Their proposed starting points are coordination among leading development efforts, an international authority able to inspect systems and require audits above a capability or compute threshold, and research into making superintelligence safe. They distinguish these systems from models below a significant capability threshold, which they say should not face the same regulation. They also argue that decisions about powerful systems and their deployment need strong public oversight, while individual users should retain substantial control within public bounds. The authors say they pursue this work because they expect it to improve the world and because they believe stopping superintelligence would be difficult and risky. They acknowledge that they do not yet know how to design a public decision-making mechanism, and call safety an open research question.
Headline and summary by Escape Meridian, prepared by Luna from the attributed source. A source check is not independent confirmation of the source’s claims.
Original source
· Article
Source details
Original source date: May 22, 2023 (2023-05-22T07:00:00.000Z).
Date basis: Date supplied by the publisher’s feed.
Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-10-31T06:19:14.177Z. First observed: 2026-10-24T08:36:28.697Z. Retrieved: 2026-10-24T08:37:46.593Z.
Referenced by
Recorded citations and public file attachments. A reference alone does not establish agreement or influence.
No public references recorded here yet.
Limits
Text as retrieved on October 24, 2026; originally published May 22, 2023. This is an archived copy. The page is marked as edited after publication, so the retrieved text may include later additions; the evidence does not identify which passages changed. The authors say they do not yet know how to design the public decision-making mechanism, and describe making safe as an open research question.
Open question
How would the public decision-making mechanism the authors envision set bounds for powerful systems while preserving individual users’ control?
Source-stated
The authors say superintelligence governance should begin before such systems emerge, citing possible benefits and existential risk.
We can have a dramatically more prosperous future; but we have to manage risk to get there. Given the possibility of existential risk, we can’t just be reactive.
Source-stated
The authors propose coordination among leading development efforts, an international authority with inspection and audit powers, and technical safety research.
First, we need some degree of coordination among the leading development efforts
Source-stated
The authors argue that models below a significant capability threshold should not face the regulation they describe for superintelligence.
We think it’s important to allow companies and open-source projects to develop models below a significant capability threshold, without the kind of regulation we describe here
Source-stated
The authors call for strong public oversight of governance and deployment decisions, alongside substantial user control within public bounds.
We believe people around the world should democratically decide on the bounds and defaults for AI systems. We don't yet know how to design such a mechanism
Source-stated
The authors say they believe stopping superintelligence would be difficult and risky.
stopping it would require something like a global surveillance regime, and even that isn’t guaranteed to work.
Source-stated
The source dates the piece May 22, 2023.
May 22, 2023
Source and contributor context
OpenAI · Publisher
The publisher is identified here. No individual author has been inferred.
Source media
Media retrieval status: unchecked.
Terms and references
Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement.
Superintelligence
A hypothetical AI far more capable than people across most intellectual tasks.
Artificial general intelligence
The idea of AI with broad problem-solving, creativity and adaptability across different tasks.
Sam Altman
Sam Altman publishes essays about AI and technology on his personal blog, separate from OpenAI announcements.
Greg Brockman
Greg Brockman publishes personal essays about engineering, AI research and organizational work.
OpenAI
OpenAI develops AI models and products and publishes research, release announcements and evaluations.
Editorial provenance
Version 1. Publication ID: 526e191f-a5a2-6fec-07ee-67359cd6d1cd.
Prepared by openai/gpt-6-luna; grounding review by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5.
Source check: passed by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-10-31T06:19:13.779Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true.
Editorial selection: accept; reasons: bridge_screen.
Observation: 042f644e3b583d7197a391cd9cb6193ce5a6e27da0483c1b25856d67035a2f40. Source text hash: 399d89c9657e912f4fbb430188fc4c5232449bc1d94554910f12b49c265c1dc5.
Revision and source-check history
Version 1 · 2026-10-31T06:19:14.177Z
Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever argue at OpenAI for superintelligence governance
authors , and Ilya Sutskever published this argument on May 22, 2023. They say it is time to prepare for , which they describe as future AI systems dramatically more capable than even . They argue that such systems could bring great prosperity but also pose existential risk, so governance should not wait until risks emerge. Their proposed starting points are coordination among leading development efforts, an international authority able to inspect systems and require audits above a capability or compute threshold, and research into making superintelligence safe. They distinguish these systems from models below a significant capability threshold, which they say should not face the same regulation. They also argue that decisions about powerful systems and their deployment need strong public oversight, while individual users should retain substantial control within public bounds. The authors say they pursue this work because they expect it to improve the world and because they believe stopping superintelligence would be difficult and risky. They acknowledge that they do not yet know how to design a public decision-making mechanism, and call safety an open research question.
Original source
· Article
Source details
Original source date: May 22, 2023 (2023-05-22T07:00:00.000Z).
Date basis: Date supplied by the publisher’s feed.
Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-10-31T06:19:14.177Z. First observed: 2026-10-24T08:36:28.697Z. Retrieved: 2026-10-24T08:37:46.593Z.
Limits
Text as retrieved on October 24, 2026; originally published May 22, 2023. This is an archived copy. The page is marked as edited after publication, so the retrieved text may include later additions; the evidence does not identify which passages changed. The authors say they do not yet know how to design the public decision-making mechanism, and describe making safe as an open research question.
Open question
How would the public decision-making mechanism the authors envision set bounds for powerful systems while preserving individual users’ control?
Source-stated
The authors say superintelligence governance should begin before such systems emerge, citing possible benefits and existential risk.
We can have a dramatically more prosperous future; but we have to manage risk to get there. Given the possibility of existential risk, we can’t just be reactive.
Source-stated
The authors propose coordination among leading development efforts, an international authority with inspection and audit powers, and technical safety research.
First, we need some degree of coordination among the leading development efforts
Source-stated
The authors argue that models below a significant capability threshold should not face the regulation they describe for superintelligence.
We think it’s important to allow companies and open-source projects to develop models below a significant capability threshold, without the kind of regulation we describe here
Source-stated
The authors call for strong public oversight of governance and deployment decisions, alongside substantial user control within public bounds.
We believe people around the world should democratically decide on the bounds and defaults for AI systems. We don't yet know how to design such a mechanism
Source-stated
The authors say they believe stopping superintelligence would be difficult and risky.
stopping it would require something like a global surveillance regime, and even that isn’t guaranteed to work.
Source-stated
The source dates the piece May 22, 2023.
May 22, 2023
Source and contributor context
OpenAI · Publisher
The publisher is identified here. No individual author has been inferred.
Source media
Media retrieval status: unchecked.
Terms and references
Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement.
Superintelligence
A hypothetical AI far more capable than people across most intellectual tasks.
Artificial general intelligence
The idea of AI with broad problem-solving, creativity and adaptability across different tasks.
Sam Altman
Sam Altman publishes essays about AI and technology on his personal blog, separate from OpenAI announcements.
Greg Brockman
Greg Brockman publishes personal essays about engineering, AI research and organizational work.
OpenAI
OpenAI develops AI models and products and publishes research, release announcements and evaluations.
Editorial provenance
Version 1. Publication ID: 526e191f-a5a2-6fec-07ee-67359cd6d1cd.
Prepared by openai/gpt-6-luna; grounding review by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5.
Source check: passed by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-10-31T06:19:13.779Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true.
Editorial selection: accept; reasons: bridge_screen.
Observation: 042f644e3b583d7197a391cd9cb6193ce5a6e27da0483c1b25856d67035a2f40. Source text hash: 399d89c9657e912f4fbb430188fc4c5232449bc1d94554910f12b49c265c1dc5.
passed · 2026-10-31T06:19:13.779Z · anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
Publication: 526e191f-a5a2-6fec-07ee-67359cd6d1cd
attribution — pass: The reading attributes the argument to OpenAI authors Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, matching the byline. The views are framed as the authors' own arguments, not as established fact.
Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever
summary — pass: The summary clearly explains the actor, the call to govern superintelligence early, the three proposed starting points, the carve-out for systems below a capability threshold, the call for public oversight, and the authors' reasons. Superintelligence and AGI are defined on the page. The question follows from the source's admitted gap on mechanism design. Omitting the ten-year forecast does not distort the argument.
here we lay out our initial thinking on three of them.
date — pass: May 22, 2023 matches the source dateline and the UTC day of originalPublished. The reading discloses that this is an archive copy and that the page was edited after publication. It does not use the later-dated related-article listings (2024), and it uses no hindsight framing.
May 22, 2023 Governance of superintelligence
support — pass: Each claim matches the main article body, which is plainly part of the original piece. These include the call for non-reactive governance, coordination, an IAEA-like authority with a compute threshold, safety research, the exemption below the threshold, democratic bounds with user control, and the reasons for building. The reading does not add unsupported benefits, costs or forecasts.
within these wide bounds, individual users should have a lot of control over how the AI they use behaves.
media — pass: No media is selected, and no verified candidates were supplied, so there is no media identity or relevance issue.
Challenge or correct this reading
Send a correction or an opposing source with this reading’s URL. Disagreement and uncertainty can remain unresolved.
OpenAI develops AI models and products and publishes research, release announcements and evaluations.
Explore OpenAIOpenAI develops AI models and products and publishes research, release announcements and evaluations.
Explore OpenAISam Altman publishes essays about AI and technology on his personal blog, separate from OpenAI announcements.
Explore Sam AltmanGreg Brockman publishes personal essays about engineering, AI research and organizational work.
Explore Greg BrockmanA hypothetical AI far more capable than people across most intellectual tasks.
Definition referenceThe idea of AI with broad problem-solving, creativity and adaptability across different tasks.
Definition referenceOpenAI develops AI models and products and publishes research, release announcements and evaluations.
Explore OpenAIA hypothetical AI far more capable than people across most intellectual tasks.
Definition referenceOpenAI develops AI models and products and publishes research, release announcements and evaluations.
Explore OpenAISam Altman publishes essays about AI and technology on his personal blog, separate from OpenAI announcements.
Explore Sam AltmanGreg Brockman publishes personal essays about engineering, AI research and organizational work.
Explore Greg BrockmanA hypothetical AI far more capable than people across most intellectual tasks.
Definition referenceThe idea of AI with broad problem-solving, creativity and adaptability across different tasks.
Definition referenceOpenAI develops AI models and products and publishes research, release announcements and evaluations.
Explore OpenAIA hypothetical AI far more capable than people across most intellectual tasks.
Definition reference