Post-truth, contradictions and “vertigo”: inside the mind of Sam Altman

Analysis In a lengthy interview on the online show "Huge if True" to mark the release of ChatGPT-5, Open AI boss Sam Altman gives a terrifying glimpse into his lack of thought on the societal impact of generative AI.

By Dominique Nora

Published on August 14, 2025 at 9:31 a.m.

Sam Altman in Washington, July 22, 2025. MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/AP/SIPA

Google News Subscribe to read

While France is on vacation, Silicon Valley continues its mad race for artificial intelligence (AI). Every week, industry leaders announce more powerful models: Gemini 3.0 at Google, Grok 4.2 for Elon Musk's xAI, GPT-5 at OpenAI... As for Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, he has poached the best brains from his competitors to form a "SuperIntelligence team" and put at its disposal a data center the size of Manhattan!

In this context, the long interview with Open AI boss Sam Altman on Cleo Abram's show "Huge if True" is chilling. Interviewed on the occasion of the August 7 release of GPT-5, the inventor of this conversational AI demonstrates zero emotional intelligence, zero sensitivity...