reporter: i am sitting with sam altman, the president of y combinator.nder of a penny i. he has made dramatic comments about ai saying it could be the next world war cause. is that future ominous? i think there will be good and bad. we have to work hard to minimize the bad. i think this is a technology that can sort of eliminate most human suffering, make life better. i am excited about it. reporter: so the mission is to have safe, general artificial intelligence. what does that mean, and how do you make sure the benefits are eva lee distributed -- evenly distributed? samuel: we will fight that as we -- find that out as we go. it is very hard to solve. we have got to figure out how to build a capability. we have had good results this year, and make sure that it is long-term good for humans. reporter: how does the company research get balance and not get into the right -- wrong hands? samuel: as we get closer to building true ai, we will have to rethink what we share in what we don't share. one of the things we believe is part of the way you make this be