Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, is once again sounding alarms about artificial intelligence, though you wouldn’t know it from his tone.
Last week, while touring one of OpenAI’s massive new data centers under construction in Abilene, Texas, Altman was asked whether he feared a financial bubble that could rattle the entire industry. His response was characteristically unhurried.
“Between the ten years we’ve already been operating and the many decades ahead of us, there will be booms and busts,” Altman said, as quoted by The Associated Press. “People will overinvest and lose money, and underinvest and lose a lot of revenue.”
He added, “We’ll make some dumb capital allocations,” but expressed confidence that “over the arc that we have to plan over, we are confident that this technology will drive a new wave of unprecedented economic growth.”
It was the kind of even-keeled reassurance that might sound more at home in a postgame interview than at the helm of a company driving the world’s most frenzied technological boom. But OpenAI — now valued at roughly half a trillion dollars and central to the global AI race — is no ordinary enterprise.
Artificial intelligence has become such a dominant economic force that it is now driving U.S. growth more than household consumption. Capital expenditures on AI contributed more to the economy in the past two quarters than all consumer spending, according to Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research, citing Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
That means if the AI bubble were to burst, the effects could be profound — potentially rippling through the broader economy.
The warning signs are not subtle. Many of the largest AI firms, including those backed by the biggest names in tech, have yet to prove they can profit from the tools that have fueled a global investment surge.
Still, Altman’s brand of nonchalant doomsaying has become something of a trademark. In August, he conceded that “when bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” adding, “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,” as quoted by The Verge.
Over the years, he has warned that AI could upend entire job markets, flood society with misinformation, or even spark existential threats to humanity. Yet each warning also serves as a kind of promotion — a reminder that the technology, and by extension OpenAI, is powerful enough to merit both awe and anxiety.
In August, shortly after declaring that an AI bubble was already underway, Altman offered another prediction. “Someone,” he said, “will lose a phenomenal amount of money. We don’t know who.”
For now, he doesn’t sound worried that it will be him.