“I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong. And we want to be vocal about that,” he said. “We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”

Mr. Altman made his public debut on Capitol Hill as interest in A.I. has exploded. Tech giants have poured billions of dollars and effort into what they say is a transformative technology, even amid rising concerns about A.I.’s role in spreading misinformation, killing jobs and one day matching human intelligence.

That has thrust the technology into the spotlight in Washington. President Biden this month said at a meeting with a group of chief executives of A.I. companies that “what you’re doing has enormous potential and enormous danger.” Top leaders in Congress have also promised A.I. regulations.

The appearance of Mr. Altman, a 38-year-old Stanford University dropout and tech entrepreneur, was his christening as the leading figure in A.I. He was joined at the hearing by an executive from IBM and a well-known professor and frequent critic of A.I. technology.

Mr. Altman said his company’s technology may destroy some jobs but also create new ones, and that it will be important for “government to figure out how we want to mitigate that.” He proposed the creation of an agency that issues licenses for the creation of large-scale A.I. models, safety regulations and tests that A.I. models must pass before being released to the public.