OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Compares AI Hype to Dot-Com Bubble, Warns ‘Someone’s Gonna Get Burned’: Report

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly admitted last week that the ongoing excitement around the generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology resembles the 1990s dot-com bubble. As per the report, Altman made the comments during an interview with a group of journalists, and highlighted that investors funding AI startups at high valuations could get “burned” in the future. This is the first time the OpenAI CEO has openly acknowledged that the AI market might be filled with over-inflated companies that might not grow as per their suggested valuation.

Sam Altman Says Investors Funding Startups With “Three People and an idea” Are “Insane”

Altman was asked during the interview if he thinks investors are overexcited about AI, The Verge reported. Answering with a yes, the CEO of one of the most influential AI firms in the world reportedly compared the ongoing rapid rise of AI to the dot-com bubble in the 1990s.

To provide more context to the comparison, in the late 1990s, Internet companies (“dot-coms”) saw massive investor hype. Many of these companies raised a large sum at sky-high valuations due to the belief that the Internet would change the way the world works. While that did happen, not every company was able to sustain and grow like Amazon or Google.

In the early 2000s, the bubble burst after investors realised that the multitude of these companies were not making a profit or had a viable business model. As a result, the Nasdaq Composite, a US stock market index dominated by technology companies, lost nearly 75 percent of its value between March 2000 and October 2002.

“When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth. If you look at most of the bubbles in history, such as the tech bubble, there was a real phenomenon. Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited,” The Verge quoted Altman as saying.

The OpenAI CEO reportedly also took a dig at AI startups with a small number of people and no market-ready products, raising millions in funding rounds. He reportedly called the trend of such firms receiving investments “insane.” Interestingly, OpenAI Co-Founder Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence and former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab have both raised billions of dollars in funding despite remaining in stealth mode.

“That's not rational behaviour. Someone's gonna get burned there, I think. Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money.” Altman was quoted as saying. The CEO also acknowledged that the AI space was not fated for a dark fall, and highlighted that investors who understand the technology also stand to make a “phenomenal amount of money.” Despite the investment risks, he reportedly said that the technology will turn out to be a “net win for the economy.”