OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted this month that generative AI could be a bubble, while at the same time promising trillions of dollars of data center and compute spend.

The conflicting statements came during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters last Thursday, where the executive also discussed ChatGPT's growth, whether chats could be encrypted, and whether the company would buy Google's Chrome browser.

“When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman said in comments first reported by The Verge.

“If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing. Tech was really important. The Internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited. Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes."

In the same conversation, he said in comments first reported by Bloomberg: “You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure in the not very distant future. And you should expect a bunch of economists to say, ‘This is so crazy, it’s so reckless, and whatever.' And we’ll just be like, ‘You know what? Let us do our thing.’”

He added: “I suspect we can design a very interesting new kind of financial instrument for finance and compute that the world has not yet figured it out. We’re working on it.”

OpenAI is currently struggling with the Stargate financial instrument, which is meant to spend a record $500 billion over four years - but that has yet to raise the $100bn that was in January said to be available 'immediately.' SoftBank, MGX, Oracle, and OpenAI itself are all involved in funding Stargate.

While Altman said that society as a whole would not regret massive AI investments, some startup valuations are “insane” and “irrational behavior.”

He added: “Someone’s gonna get burned there.”