Sam Altman has some regrets — one being his celebratory tweet announcing that ChatGPT can be used to make porn.

At an event Monday night at the Sydney Goldstein Theater, the OpenAI CEO described his Oct. 14 tweet as “one of my dumbest mistakes of the year,” adding that he wished he’d communicated the policy changes differently.

The widely mocked tweet followed a policy decision by OpenAI to lift some restrictions on the technology for verified adults. It came one day after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have imposed stringent restrictions on AI tools in an effort to protect kids.

At the event, Altman said the point of OpenAI’s policy change was to give adult users “a huge degree of individual freedom,” something he described as “a core value.” Still, he added, to laughs from the crowd, “I wish I used a different example.”

The comments came during what might have been one of the stranger panels of the year. Altman was onstage with Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr for a conversation moderated by District 8 supervisor candidate Manny Yekutiel, who told The Standard he wanted the event to “inspire people to believe in San Francisco” by spotlighting the city’s dynamic leaders and organizations.

The night started dramatically, when a member of the crowd leapt onstage, brandishing an envelope and declaring that he was there to subpoena Altman. The man, whose face was obscured to most of the audience by a baseball cap, was quickly ushered out of the building — but not before handing the envelope to Yekutiel, who intercepted him before he could reach Altman.

All three men seemed jarred by the interaction, but Yekutiel said he did not think it was a serious threat, adding that the man appeared to be in costume and that the envelope had handwritten scribbles on it. 

“It seemed kind of like a stunt,” he said. “It didn’t seem serious.”

Lucie Faulknor, house manager for the theater, said she personally escorted the man out of the building, and he seemed calm, saying he had done what he needed to do.

OpenAI has been criticized for subpoenaing small nonprofits as part of its ongoing legal battle with Elon Musk, asking the groups if they were secretly funded by the billionaire. The groups have denied such connections.

The night continued without incident, with Yekutiel, Kerr, and Altman speaking for more than an hour about pregame pep talks, leadership under difficult circumstances, and how San Francisco’s culture invites innovation. (Do not get Altman started on the connection between Burning Man and startups.) 

The night kicked off, as so many in San Francisco do, with a cameo by Mayor Daniel Lurie, who delivered his welcome message to a standing ovation. Lurie was riding high off his successful lobbying effort — alongside Altman and other tech billionaires — that convinced the Trump administration not to send a surge of federal agents to the city. The mayor called the event “a conversation that could only happen in San Francisco” and praised Kerr and Altman for their dedication to the city.

The discussion was largely friendly, veering between how the Warriors use AI in practices — a video system tracks and analyzes every shot a player takes, Kerr said — to what makes for good team culture. 

But Yekutiel also asked tough questions, especially of Altman. Asked about the negative impacts of artificial intelligence, Altman acknowledged that he did not think the future of the technology would be “an only good story” but hoped the net outcome would be positive. 

One concern that keeps him up at night is the potential asymmetric effects of the technology, where a person could AI for widespread harm, such as creating pathogens to start a pandemic, even if most people use it for good. 

He seemed less concerned about AI’s impact on the economy, acknowledging that while it’s possible that “the way we think of jobs in the future is very different,” the job of basketball coach or AI company CEO didn’t exist 500 years ago, either.

Altman also acknowledged the immense power he has to shape the technology. That’s when he touched on the decision to allow ChatGPT to create erotica, which came as the company rolled out age-gating technology to prevent children from accessing harmful material. The changes came shortly after a California family sued OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT had aided their 16-year-old in taking his life.

Altman issued a follow-up tweet (opens in new tab) saying the company would not be relaxing restrictions related to mental health, but also would not be drawing moral lines for adult users. He struck a similar tone Monday, saying that if ChatGPT is to become a dominant technology in the world, “I personally wouldn’t feel good making the morality decisions.”

Still, he acknowledged: “Clearly my worldview and moral sense of the world has some fairly significant impact in the policy decisions we make … and I try really hard to make good ones.”

One of the most tense exchanges came when Yekutiel asked his exceedingly well-compensated guests about wealth inequality in the U.S., noting that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s net worth increased by $17 billion last week — just as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits were set to expire for some 42 million Americans needing food assistance.

Altman jumped to the defense of Huang, whose company recently entered a $100 billion partnership with OpenAI, saying he has done “great things” for the country and isn’t to blame for Americans losing their SNAP benefits — a comment some in the crowd seemed to take as a shot at President Donald Trump.

Altman was less pointed on the larger issue of wealth inequality, saying he thinks building great technology is “a good on its own,” but wealthy people should also do “whatever [they] can to make the world better, in addition to all the good you’ve done with building your company.”

Kerr was more direct, saying he is troubled by the high price of tickets to Warriors games and worries about how younger generations will afford basic components of the American dream, like homeownership. “It doesn’t feel like our country is heading in the right direction with this wealth gap and this disparity,” he said.

But asked how he could influence these issues, Kerr was at a loss. “The honest answer is the machine is so big I don’t think any of us can stop it,” he said.