India is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) with an enthusiasm that appears to be missing in the United States, according to OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman. The contrast between the two countries is particularly striking given that the US is home to some of the world's biggest AI companies, including OpenAI, while India has emerged as one of the technology's fastest-growing markets. Speaking to Raj Shamani on his podcast Figuring Out, Altman said India has an "incredible builder energy" when it comes to adopting AI, adding that it is ChatGPT's biggest market in terms of user base and continues to grow rapidly.
"People are just using it in incredible ways to build companies. I just heard about some Indian kid who needed to do some fundraising for his school and had never done fundraising before and was able to get the full stack of it done with a set of our tools. It was awesome. So, I think it's like a country that has - there's just a lot of adoptions growing very quickly," the entrepreneur said.
"I do think that the US, at least on expressed preference, is unusually negative on AI relative to the rest of the world. And India is maybe unusually positive," he added.
When asked to explain the difference in attitudes, Altman pointed to the pace of economic development and the demand for products and services.
"One thing that many people have observed is that countries that are developing faster and where the economy is growing faster, and there's more need for products and services, there's just huge undersupply are people more welcoming of AI than more developed economies," he said.
Altman's remarks underline a growing divide in how different economies view artificial intelligence. While the US grapples with concerns over AI taking away jobs and concentrating power in the hands of a few technology companies, India appears more focused on the possibilities the technology offers.
For a country with a large young workforce and a growing startup ecosystem, AI is increasingly being seen as a tool to build, innovate and solve problems at scale. And, going by Altman's assessment, that appetite for experimentation is setting India apart.
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