OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has changed his display name on X to “Ram Altman” after a backlash over his remarks on computer memory. Indian users have turned the name into a Diwali meme, posting “Happy Diwali” wishes that play on the reference to Lord Ram.
\n\nThe row began when Altman appeared on the Cheeky Pint podcast, hosted by Stripe co-founder John Collison. They were discussing why global chip and memory supply has not kept up with AI demand.
\n\nRam refers to Lord Ram, the Hindu deity whose return to Ayodhya is celebrated at Diwali. RAM stands for random access memory, the computer component at the centre of Altman’s remarks.
\n\nPeople should always be in control of the future.
\n\nAltman questioned whether large amounts of DRAM sitting unused in personal computers were an efficient use of limited global memory supplies. He said cloud data centres can use memory better because they serve multiple users. He also challenged the argument that running open-source AI models locally would ease pressure on data centres.
\n\nA clip of the remark went viral on X with the caption “Local inference is a terrible allocation of scarce resources.” Local inference means running an AI model on your…
Original source: https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/
