The OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was on a visit to India and was attending an event organized by The Economic Times. In the video, he can be heard saying that India’s chances of building a ChatGPT-like tool were ‘hopeless’.
Altman was asked by former Vice President of Google in India and South East Asia and current venture capitalist Rajan Anandan
The former Vice President of Google in India & South East Asia and current venture capitalist Rajan Anandan asked whether India can build an artificial intelligence tool such as ChatGPT.
“Sam, we have got a very vibrant ecosystem in India. but specifically focussing on AI, are there spaces where you see a startup from India building foundational (AI) models how should we think about that, where is it that a team from India (should start) to actually build something truly substantial?”, the question added.
Sam replied, “We will explicitly tell you that it’s completely hopeless to challenge us in training foundational models, and you shouldn’t even attempt it.”
Tech Mahindra CEO CP Gurnani shared a Tweet saying, “OpenAI founder Sam Altman said it’s pretty hopeless for Indian companies to try and compete with them. Dear @sama, From one CEO to another.. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.”
OpenAI founder Sam Altman said it’s pretty hopeless for Indian companies to try and compete with them.
— CP Gurnani (@C_P_Gurnani) June 9, 2023
Dear @sama, From one CEO to another..
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. pic.twitter.com/67FDUtLNq0
Rajan Anandan replied saying, “Thank you @sama for the clear answer. As you said, “it is hopeless, but you will try anyway”. 5000 years of Indian entrepreneurship has shown us that we should never underestimate the Indian entrepreneur. We do intend to try @sama @OpenAI.”
In this regard, Sam Altman shared a tweet saying, “This is really taken out of context! the question was about competing with us with $10 million, which I really do think is not going to work.”
“but I still said try! However, I think it’s the wrong question”, the tweet added.
“Thank you for clarifying. Point taken,” Tech Mahindra CEO CP Gurnani replied to Altman on Twitter after Altman’s clarification.
