Sam Altman’s latest comment comparing humans to AI have swept up a stormOpenAI CEO Sam Altman is at the centre of controversy again this week after he let slip some eyebrow-raising remarks at a Q&A session.Alex Blair@alexblair_13 min readFebruary 23, 2026 - 5:32PMHe’s done it again.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is at the centre of controversy this week after some eyebrow-raising remarks made during a Q&A session hosted by The Indian Express.During the 60-minute event, Altman pushed back on the recent criticism about AI’s heavy water and energy consumption. An OECD study estimated that AI systems will consume between 4.2 and 6.6 billion cubic metres of water per year by 2027 — more than the annual water use of Denmark, or nearly half the entire United Kingdom.The fundamental energy problem facing AI has generated a lot of scrutiny over the industry in recent months, fuelling dire claims that surging US tech stocks are being outrageously overvalued.But according to Altman, those facts are being spread to “unfairly” drag AI through the dirt. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is at the centre of controversy this week after some eyebrow-raising remarks made during a Q&A session hosted by The Indian Express. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)He argues that comparisons between the energy used by artificial intelligence and the energy used by humans are difficult, because humans have to spend a long time doing things like eating, drinking and consuming electricity before they can be “productive in the workplace”.“One of the things that is always unfair in this comparison is people talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model relative to how much it costs a human to do one inference query,” Altman said.“It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.”Altman then goes a step further, suggesting that any fair calculation would also include humanity’s evolutionary past.“We’ve had the evolution of the hundred billion people,” he said, referring to the long arc of human development that allowed us “not to get eaten by predators and learn how to like figure out science and whatever.”“If we did that calculation,” he concluded, “probably AI has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis … Measured that way.”Altman also used the session to advocate for expanded sustainable energy development, arguing that investment in cleaner power could ease concerns about AI’s growing resource demands.But the overall insistence on humans needing to accept his company’s technology as the inevitable path forward was simply too much for tech commentators. Popular finance and technology commentator WallStreetMav went so far as calling his comments “evil”, while several viewers say they came away feeling Altman believes AI “matters more than human life”. Many rejected the idea of a billionaire AI executive making a value judgement against humans in a conversation about productivity, arguing those making a fortune off the AI boom have a conflict of interest in promoting mass destabilisation across the globe.Altman argues that comparisons between the energy used by artificial intelligence and the energy used by humans are difficult, because humans have to spend a long time doing things like eating, drinking and consuming electricity before they can be ‘productive in the workplace’. (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP)Sridhar Vembu, former CEO of software giant Zoho, says humans must always be considered the first priority when developing technology.“I do not want to see a world where we equate a piece of technology to a human being. I work hard as a technologist to see a world where we don’t allow technology to dominate our lives, instead it should quietly recede into the background,” he said.A letter signed by tech leaders including Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell and Elon Musk among others, titled Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter, has remained one of the industry’s biggest talking points as the world quickly transitions into the artificial intelligence era.“Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?” the letter reads.“Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us?”“Should we risk loss of control of our civilisation?”Still, supporters of the under-fire CEO countered that Altman was making a narrow technical observation about energy accounting, not a moral judgement about human worth.His supporters attempted to calm the negative storm by claiming that the recent boom in technology advancement will help save lives in the medical space, and generally improve our quality of life just like any other technological innovation.OpenAI has exploded in value since launching ChatGPT to the public in late 2022. 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