Sam Altman's case for making cheap computers from the Cheeky Pint and Stripe YouTube channel
Altman believes that cloud computing and data centers make better use of RAM than personal computers.
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Sam Altman, CEO of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, sparked controversy in recent days, as he – who is considered one of those responsible for the random access memory crisis sweeping the world and leading to higher prices for many technology products – believes that the presence of memory in users’ computers is a bad thing.
In an interview with the YouTube channel "Cheeky Pint & Stripe" published on October 30, the OpenAI president said, "It's a real shame that everyone is keeping large quantities of limited supplies of dynamic random-access memory inside their computers when it's only used 5% of the time."
OpenAI alone accounts for about 40% of the total memory produced in the world by the major companies operating in this sector, without considering the rest of the artificial intelligence companies.
Between truth and controversy lie Altman's statements. What did he mean by them?
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Altman’s interview on YouTube lasted about an hour, during which he touched on many different aspects of artificial intelligence, models, cybersecurity, and more.
But Altman's comments about memory were taken out of context, as he was talking about running models locally on users' computers without relying on cloud services provided by his company, OpenAI, and competitors.
He explained at the beginning of his discussion on this point that he was speaking from the perspective of the global distribution of limited resources, and his statements are consistent with his company “OpenAI’s” business model. Although it has open-source models that can be used locally, most of the company’s profits and revenues come from selling monthly subscriptions to use the closed models that the company hosts on its servers.
OpenAI currently does not own its own data centers, and instead relies on cooperation with companies that provide these centers, as well as exclusive partnership contracts that it used to have with companies such as Microsoft .
Altman, and behind him OpenAI, do not feel threatened by users who own laptops or desktop computers dedicated to business and gaming, regardless of the amount of memory in these computers, as this does not conflict broadly with the company's business model.
Part of what Altman says is based on the idea that data center expansion will not slow down, pointing out that using memory in data centers that operate around the clock and serve a large number of users is more worthwhile than leaving memory in personal computers that will only benefit their owner.
This viewpoint does not lessen the crisis caused by Altman's statements, as companies must balance providing memory to consumers who need it to upgrade their computers or run their own products, and using it in data centers for artificial intelligence models.
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