Mr. Altman discussed President Trump’s understanding of artificial intelligence, the war for A.I. talent and OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft.
Sam Altman, the chief executive of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, said on Tuesday that he has had productive talks with President Trump about A.I. and credited him with understanding the geopolitical and economic importance of the technology.
“I think he really gets it,” Mr. Altman said. He added, “I think he really understands the importance of leadership in this technology.”
Mr. Altman, 40, made his remarks about Mr. Trump during a live interview in San Francisco with Hard Fork, the tech podcast from The New York Times.
Over the 30-minute conversation, Mr. Altman and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, discussed A.I.’s effect on jobs, the grab for technological talent by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and regulatory and safety concerns about the fast-evolving and powerful technology.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.)
Here are some of the takeaways.
Mr. Altman has made it a point to forge a relationship with Mr. Trump. The day after the president’s inauguration in January, Mr. Altman stood behind Mr. Trump in the White House’s Roosevelt Room as Mr. Trump announced a $100 billion A.I. infrastructure deal, called Stargate, which was backed by OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle. Mr. Trump described it as the “largest A.I. infrastructure project by far in history.”
