Sam Altman is hiring someone to worry about the dangers of AI

OpenAI is hiring a Readiness Manager. Or, in other words, someone whose main job is to think about all the ways AI could go horribly wrong. In an article on X, Sam Altman announced his position by acknowledging that rapidly improving AI models poses “real challenges.” The post goes on to specifically highlight the potential impact on people’s mental health and the dangers of AI-powered cybersecurity weapons.

The job offer indicates that the person occupying this position would be responsible for:

“Track and prepare for cutting-edge capabilities that create new serious harm risks. You will be the leader directly responsible for building and coordinating capability assessments, threat models, and mitigations that form a coherent, rigorous, and operationally scalable security pipeline.”

Altman also says that in the future, this person would be responsible for executing the company’s “readiness framework,” securing AI models for unlocking “biological capabilities,” and even putting guardrails in place for self-improving systems. He also states that it will be a “stressful job,” which seems like an understatement.