Indian minister warns against giving too much importance to OpenAI's Sam Altman

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman's recently-held India visit attracted more eyeballs for his controversial comments than the actual discourse on Artificial Intelligence. Responding to Altman's remarks that India's chances are "hopeless"to build an AI tool like the ChatGPT, Indian minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that Altman is not the last word on the country's aspirations in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

In an interview with Moneycontrol, while Chandrasekhar acknowledged Altman as a "bright man" who did a lot of work in the OpenAI, the Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship contested his comments against India's potential to develop ChatGPT-like AI products.

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"He is certainly not going to be the last word on what India's aspirations for AI are going to be. He certainly doesn't have an understanding of India's capabilities in AI," Chandrasekhar told Moneycontrol.

The minister said that to assume that everything the AI boss does or sayis exactly what Indian startups are going to do misses the whole point.

Sam Altman's India visit: What happened?

Last week, Sam Altman made the remarks at an event, which many said had undermined the potential of the Indian startups.

Rajan Anandan, a venture capitalist and former head of Google India asked Sam Altman,"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?"

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Altman stated, "We will explicitly tell you that it's completely hopeless to challenge us in training foundational models, and you shouldn't even attempt it. However, it is your responsibility to still make the attempt, and I genuinely hold both of these perspectives. I genuinely believe that the chances of success are quite slim."

Tech Mahindra CEO CP Gurnani took to Twitter, saying "Challenge Accepted"to Open AI chief's comment.

Sam Altman's defence

After massive backlash on and off social media, Altman defended the claims as having been taken out of context.

"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 right question is what a startup can do that’s never been done before, that will contribute a new thing to the world. I have no doubt that Indian startups can and will do that! And no one but the builders can answer that question," Altman said in his defence.

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