OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman was served with a subpoena while onstage at a live event in San Francisco last week, meaning he will need to appear as a witness in an upcoming criminal trial involving anti-AI protesters.
The OpenAI chief was unexpectedly called to testify in a criminal case linked to protests over the company’s AI work
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman was served with a subpoena while onstage at a live event in San Francisco last week, meaning he will need to appear as a witness in an upcoming criminal trial involving anti-AI protesters.
Altman was speaking at an event alongside basketball coach Steve Kerr when a man climbed onstage, held out an envelope, and said he had “a subpoena for Sam Altman.”
The man was an investigator from the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, a city agency representing people who cannot afford private lawyers in criminal cases. The office confirmed to local outlet SFGate that it had been trying to reach Altman for some time.
The investigator served the document to Altman “because he is a potential witness in a pending criminal case,” said a spokesperson for the office. “Our investigators first made several prior attempts to serve the subpoena at Altman’s company headquarters and via its online portal.”
The subpoena is tied to a criminal case involving the activist group Stop AI, which has staged protests outside OpenAI’s headquarters. Some members are on trial after allegedly blocking entrances to its San Francisco offices in February. Altman is now required to appear as a witness in the case.
In a statement, Stop AI said its actions were intended to resist what it sees as a global existential threat. “All of our non-violent actions against OpenAI were an attempt to slow OpenAI down in their attempted murder of everyone and every living thing on Earth,” it said. “This trial will be the first time in human history where a jury of normal people are asked about the extinction threat that AI poses to humanity.”
The interruption came during a discussion about technology, inequality, and wealth. Altman was asked about the gap between Nvidia $NVDA CEO Jensen Huang’s $179 billion fortune and the millions of Americans losing access to food assistance, but he said Huang “isn’t responsible for people losing benefits” and has done “wonderful things for the country and the economy,” per the Daily Mail.
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