OpenAI’s co-founder, Sam Altman, is facing criticism after a video from June 2023 resurfaced, in which he dismissed the idea of creating a competitive AI model with a $10 million budget, calling it “hopeless.”
The clip, filmed during an Economic Times Conversations event, shows Altman bluntly stating, “It’s totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models.”
His remarks are attracting fresh criticism following the rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup that has recently become a major competitor in the AI field. DeepSeek’s chatbot, DeepSeek R1, has shaken up the industry by becoming the most downloaded free app on Apple’s US App Store.
DeepSeek is impressive: Sam Altman
In response to DeepSeek’s success, Altman admitted that the Chinese startup’s model is impressive given its low cost. He tweeted, “DeepSeek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price.”
deepseek’s r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price. we will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases.
Remarkably, the Chinese company created this chatbot for just $5.6 million— far cheaper than the multi-million-dollar budgets of American tech giants like OpenAI and Meta. DeepSeek’s AI model is 20 to 50 times more affordable than OpenAI’s, depending on the task.
