Sam Altman Warns Against Treating Artificial Intelligence Models as Religious Force

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman has warned against attributing religious power or surrendering human judgment to artificial intelligence models, calling the practice a real safety issue, The Decoder reported on October 3, 2026. Speaking on public perceptions of technology, Altman stated that it makes him very uncomfortable when individuals ascribe religious force to artificial intelligence systems or rely on them to replace human decision making. [1][2]

According to The Decoder, the remarks follow a detailed report from The New York Times concerning discussions between competitor Anthropic and religious thinkers. The comments also follow a statement regarding artificial intelligence issued by Pope Leo XIV. As recently as 2024, Altman had described building magic intelligence in the sky and remarked that he felt on the side of the angels while working on artificial intelligence. [1][2]

OpenAI is a private artificial intelligence organization whose valuation reached approximately 850 billion dollars following major funding rounds in early 2026. The company reached widespread prominence through its Generative Pre-trained Transformer series, which includes GPT-3 in 2020, multimodal GPT-4 in 2023, GPT-5 in 2025, and GPT-6 Astra in 2026. Its ChatGPT platform, launched in 2022, amassed more than 900 million weekly active users by March 2026. [6]

The organization previously experienced high profile leadership changes, including a brief removal of Altman by the board of directors in November 2023 over candor issues before his subsequent reinstatement. OpenAI released its GPT-6.1 Sol model in 2026 as part of its ongoing development of advanced scaling models. [6]