# Broad access to AI helps protect human agency

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/broad-access-to-ai-helps-protect-human-agency/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Sam Altman](https://realalpha.app/builders/sam-altman/) · Co-founder & CEO, OpenAI · Co-founded OpenAI and has led it since 2019, overseeing ChatGPT's launch; formerly president of Y Combinator.
- Host: [Patrick O'Shaughnessy](https://realalpha.app/people/patrick-oshaughnessy/) · CEO, Positive Sum · Founded Colossus, the network behind Founders and Business Breakdowns.
- Show: Invest Like the Best
- Episode: [Sam Altman on AGI, Compute, and Human Agency](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/), Jul 28, 2026
- Moment: 16:20 to 19:22 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/broad-access-to-ai-helps-protect-human-agency/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/?t=980

## Quote

> “I am terrified of a world where the very real fears of AI are used as a way to say **only this small group** of people can have it”
> — [Sam Altman](https://realalpha.app/builders/sam-altman/) at [17:58](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/?t=1078) · Invest Like the Best

## Takeaways

1. AI should expand material abundance and people’s ability to create.
2. Concentrated control is a danger, even when justified as safety.
3. People should retain the ability to shape their collective future.

## About this segment

Sam Altman argues that AI should bring abundance without putting the future in the hands of a small group. He sees broad access and people’s ability to shape their own lives as essential safeguards.

From “Sam Altman on AGI, Compute, and Human Agency”, Jul 28, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[16:32](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/?t=992) I think this will be the greatest thus far technological achievement of human history. But the only way that it really matters is if it makes people's lives much better than they otherwise would have been. Part of that is about giving people material abundance and access to do whatever they want and to express their creativity and desire to help each other. Another part of that is making sure that people maintain control and agency and that the world is increasingly, not decreasingly, democratized and that people get to express themselves.

[17:06](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/?t=1026) So on the positive side, in some sense, we are about to create a genie that can grant any wish. I think it's very important that the first wishes that we, the world, ask this genie to do benefit the world as a whole. And then I also think it's important that people of the world understand just how creative they're going to be able to be with these wishes. I'm actually not a job zoomer at all. I think there are going to be tons of jobs.

[17:33](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/?t=1053) I think we'll be busier than we want, not the opposite of that. because I think people will have such creative wishes and such incredible ideas of what they ask AI to help build. And we will all benefit from not just the obvious things like curing diseases, but I don't know the world's best entertainment ideas. We just can't even dream of sitting here now. So I want to put that in everyone's hands, which gets to one of the things that we stand against. Concentration of power with AI is a terrifying thing. I think a lot of the talk about safety concerns is well-founded. And then a lot of it is about people that just really, even if it's slightly subconscious, want to concentrate power. I am terrified of a world where the very real fears of AI are used as a way to say only this small group of people can have it

[18:18](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/?t=1098) because it's too dangerous and only they understand it. But don't worry, like they're going to make the right decisions for all of us. I don't believe in that. I don't think anyone should want to live in a world of AI overlords or company that is the rough equivalent of that, where someone is making decisions for all of the future and in exchange for a cure for cancer, which obviously is a wonderful thing, we collectively seed all agency. So I think it's very important that we not fall into this trap of in the well-meaning or not spirit of AI safety and understandable fears around that. We get away from a world where we all get to use this technology. I was like a child of the internet.

[18:56](https://realalpha.app/v/XDB5beon4DY/?t=1136) There were no rules. I mean, it was amazing. I think it was a huge factor in making me who I am and probably you and an entire generation. And I think it's critical we preserve that spirit of AI and that we all collectively have the ability to self-determine our future.