OpenAI CEO Sam Altman meets SoftBank's Masayoshi Son during Japan visit: report

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, arrived in Japan for meetings with political and business leaders.

According to a Nikkei Asia report, Altman did not disclose specific information about his meetings, but said "yes" when asked whether he had met SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son. He added that his conversation with Son touched on "all the different ways we can work together’’.

The meeting between the OpenAI chief and Son comes after the Japanese group's telecommunications unit announced in May that it would consider utilising generative AI such as ChatGPT.


Altman is in Tokyo as part of a world tour where he is meeting business and political leaders to discuss possibilities and regulations for AI.

Earlier, he visited multiple countries in Europe and then moved on to Israel, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, India, and South Korea.

In India, Altman met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and “discussed the need for global regulation’’.

After the meeting, Altman posted a picture and tweeted:

“great conversation with @narendramodi discussing india's incredible tech ecosystem and how the country can benefit from ai. really enjoyed all my meetings with people in the @PMOIndia’’.


At an event organised by The Economic Times in New Delhi last Wednesday, Altman spoke about the need for regulation of bigger players, including OpenAI. He added that smaller companies and startups should be allowed to operate unregulated.

“We have explicitly said there should be no regulations on smaller companies or on the current open source models — it’s important to let that flourish. The only regulation we have called for is (on) people like ourselves or bigger’’, he said in a discussion with Times Internet vice chairman Satyan Gajwani. He also warned against the potential misuse of generative AI by dictators.

Altman is due to visit Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia before returning to the US.

During a seminar with college students at Keio University, Tokyo, he said that artificial intelligence tools will revolutionise education like calculators did, but will not supplant learning.

Meanwhile, the OpenAI chief said a tour of capital cities had left him "quite optimistic" about prospects for global coordination on AI.

SoftBank’s AI bet

Son had said at SoftBank’s first Vision Fund launch that he envisioned multiple Vision Funds investing in artificial intelligence startups around the world.

According to a Bloomberg report, SoftBank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said in May that Son was brimming with excitement about artificial intelligence, especially generative AI like ChatGPT.

After its Vision Fund reported record losses of $32 billion in the year ended March 2023, during the earnings presentation on May 11, Goto said the company would go into “offence” mode making more big bets on automated systems.