OpenAI chief Sam Altman, during a recent visit to India, generated a controversy, when he mentioned that it would be tough and hopeless for any smaller start-up to build foundational AI (artificial intelligence) models. His statement was a response to the question posed by Rajan Anandan, former Google VP in India and Southeast Asia and a leading venture capitalist. Anandan asked a question about the capabilities of India to build AI tools such as ChatGPT during an interaction.
The Co-Founder and CIO of Square Yards, Hitesh Singla, feels that the statements made by Altman were understood out of context. He states that Sam Altman has already mentioned how he was interpreted out of context. The question given to him was that whether three engineers do it with $10 million. The answer was that one could attempt it although it would be hopeless. Singla states that the answer was quite straightforward, compared to the fact that 350 employees built OpenAI with $1 billion of funding in the early stage.
He also feels that someone from India may prove Altman wrong and it would be nice to see that happening. He also states that whenever there is a discussion on the cost benefits, there is an advantage here in terms of manpower costs, although people forget how hardware costs are costly even here. AI at such a scale will naturally come with huge GPU needs according to him.
Many other CIOs and experts feel that the opportunity to build a model like this may have passed the country already, while expressing optimism about India’s capabilities to throw up a surprise globally in the future. Some also talk about the lack of top product entities and intellectual property in diverse segments. These experts feel that India has great capabilities in the SaaS model or services and also the development of business applications.UPI, Aadhar and ONDC come in this segment according to them.
Some CIOs feel that Altman’s statement may be true to an extent, although enterprises should look to tap horizontal talent pools for not only developing deep-dive knowledge banks and AI but also elevating the whole product and extending the same towards existing options like ONDC and UPI. It remains to be seen how India can truly push the envelope with newer innovations in this space in the future years.
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Published Date: June 13, 2023
