Bret Taylor, the board chair at OpenAI and CEO of AI agent startup Sierra, was recently asked in an interview if he agreed with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s declaration that someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI. Taylor echoed Altman’s sentiments, suggesting that we are indeed in an AI bubble. However, like Altman, he did not seem overly concerned about it.
Taylor stated that he believes AI will transform the economy and create huge amounts of economic value in the future, much like the internet did. He also believes we are currently in a bubble where a lot of people will lose a lot of money. He argues that both of these statements are absolutely true at the same time, noting there is a lot of historical precedent for such a situation.
Specifically, Taylor compared the current AI landscape to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. While many companies failed when that bubble burst, he contended that the fundamental optimism behind that era was correct. He argued that all the people in 1999 were kind of right about the internet’s potential, even though a market correction occurred.