Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, angered PC gamers and others buying hardware this year with a statement he made earlier this week. Speaking on a podcast, Altman argued that it is inefficient for large amounts of RAM to sit unused in personal computers during a memory shortage, suggesting that this memory should instead be fully utilized in the cloud, specifically in data centers.
He doesn't like running AI models locally
Speaking about people who want to run AI models locally on their own computers, Altman said it was pretty terrible that everyone keeps a portion of the world's limited RAM supply at home, where it is only used about five percent of the time. Altman did not directly mention gamers, but his logic applies to them as well. If that is the case, then having 32GB of RAM in your gaming PC is simply a waste of the world's memory supply.
The irony is that these very data centers are consuming the memory that has driven hardware prices higher. In mid-October, the cheapest 32GB DDR5 memory kit in the US cost around $450, while the same kit could be purchased for $100 to $200 a year earlier. At major retailers, prices often exceed $500, prompting some enthusiasts to buy cheaper laptop RAM and modify it for desktop computers.
PC gamers are not the only ones affected. In April, Sony introduced its second PS5 price increase in less than a year, bringing the price of the disc-based PS5 in Europe to €649.99 and the digital version to €599.99. The PS5 Pro increased from €799.99 to €899.99. As of August 1, the Xbox Series S starts at €499.99 in Europe, while the disc-based Series X costs €799.99. Xbox chief Asha Sharma said that Microsoft was paying more than twice as much for console memory components in February compared to the previous autumn. Nintendo has not been spared either. As of September 1, the Switch 2 costs €500 in Europe instead of €470, with Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa citing rising memory prices as the main reason.
The consequences are already visible, with console sales in the US falling to their lowest level in 13 years. There is no end to the shortage in sight. Analysts expect RAM prices to rise by another 20 percent by the end of the year, while the shortage is expected to deepen further next year.
In other words, we are already paying several times more for RAM because of the AI industry, while the man leading one of the world's largest AI companies believes the problem is that we have it in the first place.
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