OpenAI chair Bret Taylor says AI Boom mirrors Dot-Com Bubble

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Bret Taylor, board chair at OpenAI and CEO of AI agent startup Sierra, said the artificial intelligence industry is likely in a financial bubble but added that the technology will also unlock major economic value.

In an interview with The Verge, Taylor echoed OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman’s earlier warning that "someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI."

"I think it is both true that AI will transform the economy, and I think it will, like the internet, create huge amounts of economic value in the future," Taylor said. "I think we’re also in a bubble, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money. I think both are absolutely true at the same time, and there’s a lot of historical precedent for both of those things being true at the same time."

Taylor likened the current frenzy in AI to the late-1990s dot-com boom. "All the people in 1999 were kind of right," he said, pointing out that while many internet companies collapsed, the underlying technology reshaped the global economy.

Warnings about the risks of AI have grown alongside its rapid development.

Earlier this year, tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya cautioned that the AI sector could be headed toward the "largest speculative bubble of all time."

Last year, computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the 'Godfather of AI,' left Google and warned that AI could pose serious risks to humanity if left unchecked.

As AI systems proliferate, the field has come to resemble uncharted territory where detractors and champions hold equal sway. For some, it represents a revolutionary economic force; for others, it is a costly gamble with uncertain payoffs.