SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Marc Benioff strode down Mission Street Tuesday afternoon toward Salesforce Tower, where he was set to host a private dinner as part of a whirlwind of events during the company’s annual Dreamforce conference. Some pedestrians stopped to take photos of the 6-foot-5 CEO, surprised he had taken to the streets. One person congratulated him on his keynote address earlier in the day; several bodyguards surrounded Benioff as he walked.
Along the way, Benioff, still wearing the pinstripe suit and burgundy tie from the keynote, waved off concerns that AI could wipe out humanity, a topic that has been front-of-mind in Silicon Valley circles during the past week after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit over such worries. But Benioff, in a walking interview with Fortune, also said companies should be held accountable for risks they create, and he compared current AI issues to early mistakes made in social media.
