正文 · AI 翻译
IT Home reported on November 4 that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently responded to fierce criticism of remarks he made. In an earlier interview, he said he thought it was “pretty bad” for personal computers to have memory instead of concentrating memory in data centers for people to use.
In an interview with YouTuber Cheeky Pint, Altman said: “From the standpoint of allocating global resources, it’s actually pretty bad for everyone to have large amounts of DRAM, which is in limited supply worldwide, sitting in their computers idle 95% of the time. To deal with the current situation of extremely tight supply, cloud resources should be used as much as possible. But for some reason, many people’s intuition is exactly the opposite.”
The remarks quickly drew widespread ridicule. Many people felt that, whatever Altman intended, his comments sounded as though he wanted to deprive individuals of the right to own memory and force society to pool its resources for AI companies such as OpenAI. Social media soon filled with posts, images and videos criticizing his view; some people said they would firmly defend their memory and let no one take it away. Even technology industry rival Elon Musk joined the criticism, posting a related meme.
Altman has now responded to the controversy in a series of social media posts. He expressed frustration with the online reaction, stressed that his remarks had been taken out of context and made jokes about it. At one user’s suggestion, he even changed his X (formerly Twitter) account name to “Ram Altman.”
Altman said he actually wants the world to have “a lot of memory” and wants people to put “as much memory as they want” in their own computers. He also complained that having his remarks taken out of context was “annoying.”
He continued: “I have been calling for the world to expand memory production capacity for a long time.”
Altman did not, however, deny that he believes concentrating memory in data centers may be more efficient than distributing it among personal computers. His point, he said, was that the global memory supply should be ample enough that there is no need to choose between the two. In another reply, Altman said: “I want you to have more memory than you can use. Let’s increase production.”
The response has not settled the controversy. As expected, internet users continued to answer Altman’s explanation with memes and mockery. PC gamers in particular have kept criticizing the tech billionaire’s views.
Earlier today, Altman also posted a statement on X. Some people believe it may have been related to the US midterm elections. Democrats defeated the Republicans led by Trump in this election and regained control of the US Congress, which may mean the US government will change its approach to AI regulation. Until now, US regulation of the AI industry has generally been quite limited.
Altman wrote at the time: “People should always be in control of their own future. OpenAI opposes the idea that people can be placed in a subordinate position, able only to do things that AI systems deem worthy of rewarding humans for. People should not hand control of the future over to superintelligence, and this requirement should ultimately serve as a constraint on the pace of AI development.”
Data center construction and AI’s possible effects on the job market and even human survival have become major concerns for voters. Meanwhile, the AI boom has driven up demand for the relevant memory, tightening supplies of memory used in AI systems and, in turn, pushing up prices of graphics cards, game consoles and PC hardware sharply.
IT Home noted that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all raised the prices of their game consoles amid the memory supply crisis known as the “RAMpocalypse.” Nvidia’s RTX 5080 graphics card has also been removed from its official store, while sales of the RTX 5090 had already largely ceased just weeks earlier.