OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned Saturday against giving artificial intelligence models religious authority or surrendering human judgment to them, calling the practice a "real safety issue."
"I am very uncomfortable about people trying to ascribe religious force or a surrender of human judgment to AI models, and think it is a real safety issue," Altman wrote on US social media platform X.
His comments came days after reports that rival AI company Anthropic had held private meetings with religious and philosophical thinkers about AI consciousness and morality.
The New York Times newspaper reported that the discussions included whether AI systems such as Claude could potentially be conscious and how religious thinking could help shape their behavior.
Anthropic has also been studying what it calls "model welfare," including whether advanced AI systems could have experiences that warrant moral consideration.
The issue has also drawn concern from other technology executives.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has warned against developing AI systems that appear conscious, arguing that encouraging people to believe AI has subjective experiences could create new risks.
Suleyman has advocated a "Humanist AI" approach in which AI systems remain tools designed to serve people rather than entities treated as having interests of their own.
