OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Thursday that he felt members of the Muslim and Arab communities in the technology industry were uncomfortable talking about their recent experiences, in an apparent reference to the impact of the ongoing war in Gaza, according to a Reuters report.
“Muslim and Arab colleagues (particularly Palestinians) in the tech community I spoke with feel uneasy about their recent experiences, and often do not speak out out of fear of retaliation and harming their career prospects,” Altman wrote on the social media network X.
The prominent president of the company that developed ChatGPT, which is supported by Microsoft, urged: Urge technology makers to treat members of those communities with empathy.
One X user asked Altman how he felt about the experiences of the Jewish community and he responded: “I’m Jewish, and I think anti-Semitism is a big and growing problem in the world, and I see a lot of people in our industry supporting me, which I greatly appreciate, and I see much less of that for Muslims.”
Human rights advocates point out that Islamophobia has risen sharply in the United States and elsewhere since October 7, when the Al-Aqsa flood began. The Israeli attack on Gaza killed more than 22,000 Palestinians, nearly 1% of the Strip’s population of 2.3 million, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said last month that in the two months following the start of the war, incidents motivated by Islamophobia and bias against Palestinians and Arabs rose by 172% in the United States compared to the same period last year.
The Anti-Defamation League said last December that between October 7 and December 7, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States rose by 337%.
