Sam Altman Acknowledges AI Industry Is in a Bubble, Compares It to the Dot-Com Era
He drew parallels between today's AI investment surge and the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, when internet startup valuations skyrocketed before collapsing in 2000. 'When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,' Altman noted. 'If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing. Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited.'
Altman expressed concern over sky-high valuations for AI startups that, in some cases, have 'three people and an idea.' Calling such funding 'insane' and 'not rational behaviour,' he warned, 'Someone's gonna get burned there, I think.' In recent months, AI companies like Safe Superintelligence, led by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, and Thinking Machines, founded by ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, have raised billions of dollars.
'Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money. We don't know who, and a lot of people are going to make a phenomenal amount of money,' Altman said. Still, he believes the net result will be positive: 'My personal belief, although I may turn out to be wrong, is that, on the whole, this would be a huge net win for the economy.'
Altman also hinted at massive future investments for OpenAI, saying, 'You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future. You should expect a bunch of economists to wring their hands.'
Despite warning signs, Altman's remarks suggest confidence that OpenAI will remain a dominant player, even if the AI bubble eventually bursts.
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