OpenAI's Greg Brockman: There Will Be Data Centers Everywhere

Well, I think it's going to give us an advantage and I think it's going to be something that's an advantage not just for the business, but for actually delivering on the mission of bringing this technology to everyone.

Mhm. Who's laughing now?

I mean I think our competitors are not having a good time on compute. Let me put it that way.

I think we're going to have data centers everywhere.

Well, data centers in space has many technical problems associated with it. Even for example, the data centers we build today are very finicky, right? They're these massive machines with very breakable, very expensive components. We've had many issues in the past where the cables were just too taut, just literally like too tight of cables and then you get signal integrity issues and the computer doesn't work. And so figuring out how do you maintain systems today, it's people go in physically pull them, probably will move to robotics. So I think figuring out how to solve some of these technical problems are going to be very important dependencies as we think about putting them in, you know, people talk about putting data centers in various difficult locations. Space feels like a grand challenge, but I think that we are going to have such need for compute that we need to be thinking about all options.

Yes.

I think that this kind of thing happening this year is not out of the question and it's really amazing if you think about it. Having this giant machine, right? And have you been to any of these data centers?

It is a very different experience to walk amongst these racks, right? To walk down the rows and you look at the cables that are all perfectly exactly the right length and you just realize that what a data center is, it's a massive machine. These are maybe the biggest machines that humanity creates. And then you ask the question of why. Why do we build these machines? Why is it worthwhile? And it is because they have the potential to solve problems that matter for people, right? To solve, you know, come up with cures for cancer, to help people run businesses, to, you know, sometimes maybe it's mundane queries. The purpose in my mind is really about how do you deliver value? How do you deliver on people's goals? And I think the opportunity presented by these massive machines targeting one problem is something we have not yet really internalized.

Well, this is going to be the most important question for society to answer. Where does the compute go? What problems are worthy? And there's lots of worthy problems, but you need to prioritize them because you only have so much compute. And so one thing we really believe in is that everyone is going to need access to compute. And so that's why we have a free tier of ChatGPT. We've really put effort into making sure that people are able to use this technology, that it's widely available because we believe that is core to what we're doing here. We think that putting this technology in people's hands that empowers them, that lets them achieve goals, it helps them also understand the technology, right? It's something that helps them then shape how does this technology slot in. You could take a very different approach and say, well, it's all about the ivory tower. It's all about just solve the problem and we will then distribute the technology breakthroughs in some way. And I think there's merit to that as well, but that's not where I'd put the balance of what we do. I think that that is very much a like we do want to make great strides on specific problems, but I think that that should be in service again of the we want the benefits of this technology to be broadly distributed.

Well, I think that there's a number of different pieces to what regulation for AI needs to accomplish. One I think is very important is we need to ultimately ensure this technology benefits people. Like it is very clear that institutions, jobs, just life paths that people thought would be stable, those assumptions may not hold anymore. And we need to make sure that we provide support, that we're all there to support each other as this technology rolls out. And so what does that mean from a regulatory perspective? I think there's a lot of ideas whether it's things like everyone should have access to compute. How do we ensure that that's true? How do we ensure that as this technology starts to generate more economic value, it doesn't accrue to just one place, right? There should be something that actually everyone is benefiting from. This technology shouldn't just abstractly benefit the economy, it's very clearly going to do. It should directly be something that people feel in their daily lives, that they themselves, their life is better because this technology exists, because they're using it, because they're able to accomplish more. And you think about things like data centers, that those are something where there's clearly been a lot of concern about questions like do they drive up electricity prices and we have a commitment to ensure that they do not. And I think that each of these things can be achieved through many different mechanisms. Sometimes it's through regulation, sometimes it's through commitments from the company, and sometimes it's just through people understanding the facts. Like a good example is data centers and water usage. Like that's something that people talk about a lot, but actually our data centers use incredibly little water, right? That's actually misinformation that they use a lot.

It is because it's a closed loop. You basically fill up a giant like, you know, think of it as like a swimming pool of water and you just circle it around. And so it's a fixed amount of water that's not very large. But I think people really understanding the why. Why are we building these things? Why is it worthwhile? How does it benefit me? And being able to give people that empowerment, whether it's helping them feel that they can be an entrepreneur now, that they can build a business, that they can create something, like all of that we have to solve for. We have to make sure that people feel it in their daily lives.