Sam Altman says the Trump AI accord is a start and more will be needed

Sam Altman said the Trump AI accord is “a good start,” describing it as “much better than nothing,” but he argued it lacks real power. In his second Vanity Fair interview, recorded in San Francisco on 2 October and published on 5 October, the OpenAI chief said the US and China could potentially agree on shared AI safety standards and ways to verify compliance. Altman also suggested the need for more over time and noted there is “social force” behind such agreements, particularly among companies. He referenced his September comments that governments should have a stronger role and discussed antitrust exemptions, model pauses, GPT-6.1 Astra, and the importance of guardrails like reporting and liability.