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Sam Altman addresses RAM comments: people should ‘put as much as they want in their computers’
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman clarified comments about people keeping computer memory at home, saying he wants people to put as much RAM in their computers as they like. His remarks follow criticism of an interview in which he called it “quite terrible” for people to have limited DRAM sitting in computers that is used only five per cent of the time.
Altman said the comments had been taken out of context and that he has long argued for increasing memory production. The dispute comes amid a RAM shortage as AI data centres buy up supplies, contributing to technology price rises and making memory harder for consumers to obtain. Intel expects the shortage to continue at least through next year, while SK Hynix has forecast it could last until 2030.
In short
- Altman says people should be free to put as much RAM in their computers as they want.
- He says his earlier comments about home PC memory were taken out of context.
- AI data centre demand is worsening shortages, which could last for years.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Altman’s comments can be read as a call to expand memory production so that households and AI developers alike have access to the computing resources they need. From this perspective, greater supply would ease the shortage and let people choose how much RAM to install, while criticism of the original remark may have mistaken an argument about underused capacity for opposition to consumer access.
The case against
Critics can argue that, during a shortage driven partly by AI data-centre demand, describing household RAM that is used only occasionally as “quite terrible” risks treating consumers’ choices as wasteful while large companies compete for scarce supplies. They may see the remark as overlooking the immediate effects on affordability and availability, and argue that expanding production does not resolve concerns about how limited memory is allocated in the meantime.
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