Sam Altman Responds To Tech Mahindra CEO's 'Challenge Accepted' Tweet; Here's What Happened

JE Technology Desk: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the brain behind ChatGPT, visited India recently. He shared thoughts at an ET event, visited IIIT Delhi and met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among other things. His remarks drew massive media attention throughout his visit. One such controversial statement includes labelling an attempt to compete with OpenAI on training foundation models as hopeless. However, the CEO has now shared a clarification after rough reactions from big names including CEO of Tech Mahindra.

Days after his remarks, CP Gurnani, MD and CEO of Tech Mahindra is in the news for accepting this 'hopeless' challenge of Altman. For context, Altman said this while answering Rajan Anandan, former VP of Google India. The former Google head had sought advice on how a team from the vibrant startup ecosystem in India should go ahead in building foundational models on a $10 million budget. Answering the question, the OpenAI boss replied "it's totally hopeless" to compete with OpenAI.

Also Read: ChatGPT Maker CEO Sam Altman Meets PM Modi; Here's What They Discussed

"OpenAI founder Sam Altman said it's pretty hopeless for Indian companies to try and compete with them. Dear @sama, From one CEO to another...CHALLENGE ACCEPTED," Gurnani wrote in a tweet.

Clearing out the dust amid the backlash, Altman clarified that the statements have been "taken out of context" as he was equating the development with a $10 million budget. This is "not going to work," he added.

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.

— Sam Altman (@sama) June 10, 2023

Here's What Altman said at the event: "The way this works is we're going to tell you, it's totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models you shouldn't try, and it's your job to like try anyway. And I believe both of those things. I think it is pretty hopeless."

Reacting to Altman's response, Anandan also tweeted on June 8, "Thank you @sama [Sam Altman] for the clear answer. As you said, "it is hopeless, but you will try anyway". 5000 years of Indian entrepreneurship has shown us that we should never underestimate the Indian entrepreneur. We do intend to try."

On a related note, Altman also shared opinions on the question will AI take away jobs. He said while "some jobs" will go away, better ones will likely appear that are difficult to image at the moment. He also India has "embraced" ChatGPT.