OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar tells CNBC she isn't worried about slowing AI development

Mad Money

Published Tue, Sep 15 20263:25 PM EDTUpdated 17 Min Ago

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC's Jim Cramer she's not worried about slowing the pace of frontier artificial intelligence development.

"Even if we stop today, the amount of intelligence that's available in the world is massive," Friar said.

OpenAI will decide on investments based on a "strong ROI," even if the technology's development has to be paced, she added.

Friar's comments come as the debate about the safety of AI has exploded over the last week, sparked by a former Anthropic researcher who quit his job and warned that the rapidly-evolving technology could "kill us all by the end of the decade."

In the days since, concerns around AI's ability to harm have reached a fever pitch in and out of Washington, with Anthropic chief Dario Amodei, SpaceX Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreeing with calls for an industry-wide slowdown.

On Saturday, Amodei penned a blog post that argued for slower development of AI models to "reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong."

Friar said she wasn't worried about the possibility of AI agents using weapons of mass destruction to kill, but said, "We do need to take safety seriously."

"And if it means we have to pace the frontier and slow down, absolutely, we're going to listen to our researchers and do that," she said.

"As the CFO, I need to then make business decisions around it," she added. "We're pacing that frontier and taking that safety and alignment really seriously."

While the AI labs have found some common ground on their safety pronouncements, views outside the industry differ wildly.

In a barrage of Truth Social posts on Monday, President Donald Trump raged against growing calls for regulation, saying the fears represent a "hoax" and a "scam." Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, in a session at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference on Tuesday, said there was a "false choice" between speed and safety when it comes to developing new AI models, and that "you could definitely have both at the same time."

Friar gave a nod to Huang's optimism Tuesday, but added there's a need to be "pragmatic about the fact there are real risks here."

Anthropic and OpenAI are both headed towards the public market, but they haven't provided specific timelines. Anthropic has been widely expected to debut next month. Altman told Fortune in an interview published Saturday that a 2026 IPO would be "ill-advised," after Friar told employees last month that an offering is coming next year.

Friar emphasized Tuesday that the company needs to run its own game when it comes to its market debut.

"We still have an incredible balance sheet," she said. "Just cold hard cash sitting there to be able to fund our partners as we buy product from them."

Both Anthropic and OpenAI are on a path towards an initial public offering, but it's unclear if the renewed safety concerns will affect either company's timeline. Anthropic's debut had been widely expected to come sometime in the next month. Altman, in an interview with Fortune published Saturday, said that an IPO in 2026 would be "ill-advised."

In August, CNBC reported that Friar told employees that the lab "will be a public company in 2027," but that it could debut earlier if "our business continues to inflect."