Sam Altman Says the Quiet Part Out Loud, Believes We're in an AI Bubble

Yahoo

21 hours ago

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just admitted to what the rest of the AI industry won't: that the entire thing could be a big, fat bubble, ready to burst.
Though it's a fiercely debated topic — with many experts saying the writing's on the wall — the OpenAI CEO was unwavering in his conviction.
"When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth," Altman told a small group of reporters on Thursday, as quoted by The Verge. "Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes."
It's a striking admission to make for Altman, whose company is eyeing an astronomical $500 billion valuation. OpenAI has received tens of billions of dollars in investment from Microsoft, Softbank, and Nvidia. And as a flag-bearer of the industry with its mega-popular chatbot ChatGPT, it's under immense pressure to demonstrate a profitable business model.
Is Altman speaking out of turn, or is he trying to get ahead of what feels like an inevitable decline for the industry?
To support his claims, Altman drew on a recent example: the dot-com bubble in the 90s.
"If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing," Altman elaborated, per The Verge. "Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited."
The dot-com bubble in many ways parallels the fervor surrounding AI. During this period, companies rushed to build telecom infrastructure while investors poured loads of money into internet-based businesses — only for it to pop when it became apparent that these companies couldn't generate profit.
Today, you could swap telecom infrastructure with "data centers" and internet companies with "AI startups" and argue much the same thing.
Some of Altman's other comments suggest that the reason he's comfortable with acknowledging a bubble on the horizon is that he believes OpenAI will survive it — if not come out stronger. Amazon, for example, weathered the dot-com implosion and became one of the biggest companies in the world.
For one, Altman boasted that "Pretty soon, billions of people a day will be talking to ChatGPT." The chatbot has over 700 million users per week, which is four times as many as a year ago.
"We're the fifth biggest website in the world right now," he added. "I think we're on the clear path to the third."
Most telling of all is his forecast for OpenAI's plans.
"You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future," Altman told reporters — which is not the talk of a company bracing for severe economic hardships.
He also blew off the valid concerns this might raise regarding the sustainability of such spending.
"And you should expect a bunch of economists to wring their hands and be like, 'Oh, this is so crazy, it's so reckless,'" Altman said, as quoted by Wired. "And we'll just be like, 'You know what? Let us do our thing.'"
Altman acknowledged that "someone" will lose a "phenomenal amount of money," but "we don't know who," he said.
But not OpenAI, of course.
"My personal belief, although I may turn out to be wrong, is that on the whole, this will be a huge net win for the economy," Altman predicted.
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