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TechStuff

What Happens When You Deepfake the CEO of OpenAI? - The Story

TechStuff

iHeartPodcasts

Tech News, News, Technology

4.31.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When documentary filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough set out to make a movie about OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, he hoped to get an interview with his main character. But when that didn’t happen, Adam found a workaround — he created a chatbot version of Sam Altman. From San Francisco to India to Los Angeles, Adam takes “Sambot” and the audience on a journey through the possibilities of what can happen when you deepfake a real person, and that person becomes your friend.

Karah sat down with Adam to discuss the secretive, cult-like nature of OpenAI, Adam’s relationship with “Sambot,” and whether AI chatbots are the future of friendships. 

If you’d like to see the film, check out deepfakingsamaltman.com/buy-tickets.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is an I-Heart podcast.

0:02.5

Guaranteed human.

0:19.6

Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Osvaloshin, and today I want to share a fantastic interview

0:24.2

that Kara recorded with the documentary director Adam Bala Lowe about his latest project,

0:31.3

Deep Faking Sam Haltman. The film follows Adam as he attempts to score an interview with the CEO of OpenAI.

0:38.5

But when that starts to feel kind of impossible, Adam decides he wants the next best thing,

0:45.2

an interview with Sam Altman's Deepfake. So he makes one. It's a fascinating watch that takes you

0:52.9

from the gates of Open AI all the way to India

0:55.9

and back again when Adam sends his Sam Altman deepfake directly to Sam Altman, the real one.

1:04.0

Please enjoy this conversation between Kara Price and Adam Bala Lowe.

1:10.5

So you set out to make this documentary about AI, how did you end up focusing on Sam Altman?

1:17.7

And why are you drawn to him particularly as a subject of a movie about AI?

1:23.0

Yeah, Sam Altman was really an entry point early on.

1:27.2

And in a lot of ways, like, I believe that he's the guy that's ferrying us into this future through OpenAI.

1:36.6

And so he, of all people, would be able to answer the hard questions that I wanted to ask him.

1:43.6

When you say ferrying us into this future, what's the future that you're talking about?

1:48.7

It's a future where we're completely enmeshed with artificial intelligence, where it's as much a part of our daily lives as the internet is.

1:56.6

Do you not think that we're already there? Is it really the future?

1:59.5

No, I don't think we're completely there yet.

2:02.2

I mean, I think that certainly people on, you know, the coasts and like more privileged people are,

2:07.7

but like the majority of Americans aren't, frankly. And we also see like that it took time for the,

2:15.9

for a lot of people in america to adopt to the internet

...

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