It's 100% plausible and believable that there's going to be a spectacular bubble popping, but saying we are way past peak LLM would be like saying we were way past peak internet in 1999-2001 -- in reality, we weren't even remotely close to peak internet (and possibly still aren't). In fact, we were so far from the peak in 2001 that entire technological revolutions occurred many years later (e.g., smartphones) that just accelerated the pace even further in ways that would've been hard to imagine at the time. It's also important to note that AI is more than text-based LLMs -- self-driving cars and other forms of physical "embodied" AI are progressing at exponential pace, while entirely new compute form factors are only just now starting to emerge yet are almost certainly guaranteed to become pervasive as soon as possible (e.g., real AR glasses). Meanwhile, even plain-old text-based LLMs have not actually stagnated.

▲ huijzer 4 days ago | parent [-]

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▲ aurareturn 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

  “You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future,” he told the room, according to a Verge reporter.

  “We have better models, and we just can’t offer them, because we don’t have the capacity,” he said. GPUs remain in short supply, limiting the company’s ability to scale.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sam-altman-admits-openai-tota...

So why would Altman say AI is in a bubble but OpenAI wants to invest trillions? Here's my speculation:

1. OpenAI is a private company. They don't care about their own stock price.

2. OpenAI just raised $8.3b 3 weeks ago on $300b valuation ($500b valuation today). He doesn't care if the market drops until he needs to raise again.

3. OpenAI wants to buy some AI companies but they're too expensive so he's incentivized to knock the price of those companies down. For example, OpenAI's $3b deal for Windsurf fell apart when Google stepped in and hired away the co-founder.

4. He wants to retain OpenAI's talent because Meta is spending billions hiring away the top AI talent, including talent from OpenAI. By saying it's in a bubble and dropping public sentiment, the war for AI talent could cool down.

5. He wants other companies to get scared and not invest as much while OpenAI continues to invest a lot so it can stay ahead. For example, maybe investors looking to invest in Anthropic, xAI, and other private companies are more shaky after his comments and invest less. This benefits OpenAI since they just raised.

6. You should all know that Sam Altman is manipulative. This is how he operates. Just google "Sam Altman manipulative" and you'll see plenty of examples where former employees said he lies and manipulates.

	▲	savorypiano 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Altman wants OTHERS to spend trillions are GPU. He needs the scaling hype to continue so he can keep getting investors to put money in hopes of an AGI breakthrough. If there is no funding, OpenAI is immediately bankrupt.

▲ 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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