Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, has criticized how RAM is currently used in personal computers. Speaking on the Cheeky Pint program, he described leaving most of this memory inactive for much of the time as a major waste.
The discussion focused partly on people who want to run artificial intelligence locally, directly on their own computers. While local AI can reduce reliance on large data centers, Altman said the global production of DRAM is limited and that the current system does not use this resource effectively.
He argued that having large amounts of memory distributed across computers worldwide, where it is used for only around 5% of the time, is a poor arrangement. With AI growth contributing to component shortages and higher prices, Altman said the priority should be to maximize the use of available memory.
For that reason, he believes cloud infrastructure is the better place to deploy RAM and keep it working more consistently. During the same conversation, Altman also said he would prefer a society with “one trillion AIs with slightly superhuman intelligence” rather than one dependent on “a single AI with a trillion IQ.”
Sources: Eurogamer Portugal.