Sam Altman says he wants people to have more RAM after backlash

OpenAI chief Sam Altman says he wants people to have plenty of RAM after criticism of earlier remarks about memory use and data centers.

On the Cheeky Pint podcast, Altman said it was “quite terrible” for people to keep part of the world’s limited DRAM supply in their computers, arguing that cloud resources should be used as much as possible amid tight supply. His remarks came during a discussion of people running local AI models and whether data centers were needed.

After the comments drew backlash, Altman said on X that they had been taken out of context. He agreed to a user’s suggestion to change his name to “Ram Altman,” then said he wanted people to have as much memory in their computers as they wanted. In a reply to another user asking why he wanted their RAM, Altman wrote: “I want you to have so much RAM.”

Altman also said he had long argued for increasing memory production. The criticism has continued, in part because demand from AI data centers has contributed to tight memory supply for consumers. TechRadar reports that some analysts and firms expect shortages to last for years as new fabrication plants take time to come online.