Looking To Invest In Indian Startups: OpenAI Cofounder Sam Altman

OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman, who is on a trip to India, on Thursday (June 8) expressed his interest in investing in Indian startups.

Responding to a question by Inc42, during an event in Delhi, about OpenAI’s venture capital arm investing in Indian startups, the OpenAI CEO said, “We had some discussions yesterday (about investing in Indian startups) and we would love to invest in Indian startups.” 

The founder of OpenAI, which is behind the generative AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, also said that India is one of the biggest startup ecosystems in the world.

Having worked as the president of the US-based early stage startup accelerator programme Y Combinator in 2014, Altman already has experience dealing with early stage startups.

It must be noted that OpenAI launched its VC arm, OpenAI Startup Fund, late last year. “We’re looking to partner with a small number of early stage startups in fields where artificial intelligence can have a transformative effect – like health care, climate change, and education – and where AI tools can empower people by helping them be more productive,” its website says. 

OpenAI Startup Fund raised $175 Mn last month as per the filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

Altman’s India trip is part of a multi-leg tour which will also include visits to countries such as Israel, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and South Korea.

The OpenAI cofounder, at an event on Wednesday (June 7), called AI an ‘existential risk’ and sought global regulations for the technology.

“The world can come together for important things…This is an existential risk. If the governments don’t get their act together, we will try our hardest to get every company to cooperate, but we can’t get every company to cooperate. We would at least like to ask for a dream world and, if we can’t have that, we will get the companies that wanna play ball together and do our best,” said Altman.

Altman, who has been an advocate of strict AI regulations (which he has also received criticism for), also said AI could disrupt the global job market to some extent. However, he added that AI will also bring new avenues of employment.

“Earlier people thought that AI was first going to replace the physical labour jobs.. then, it’ll come for the sort of easier kinds of cognitive labour, (and) then maybe eventually like computer programmers… and then you know… maybe for the creative jobs… And, of course, we can look now and say it appears like it’s going exactly the other direction…,” Altman said.

As per research earlier this year, every non-physical job had some exposure to AI and had the potential to be replaced by AI.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.