OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently compared the energy required to train advanced AI models with decades of resources needed to raise and educate a human being. Speaking at an event in India, Altman argued that while AI’s energy use is rising, it should be viewed in context noting that making a human ‘smart’ takes 20 years of life and all the food consumed during that time. He also suggested that the focus should be on switching to clean energy sources rather than slowing AI progress.
However, it appears that Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has a difference of opinion. Taking to social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) Vembu shared a post saying that he does not want to see a world where technology is equated with human life. “I do not want to see a world where we equate a piece of technology to a human being.
I work hard as a technologist to see a world where we don’t allow technology to dominate our lives, instead it should quietly recede into the background,” wrote Vembu.
Warning against tech dominance
Vembu also stressed on the fact that AI should remain as a supportive tool and not as a dominant force. He also cautioned that allowing machines to placed on the same level as humans, tressing that technology must serve humanity rather than overshadow it. His remarks reflect growing unease among technologists about the cultural and ethical implications of AI’s rapid expansion.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu drew a comparison between Google, Meta and other tech companies
Recently, Vembu drew a comparison between today’s large technology companies and East India Company. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Sridhar Vembu wrote: “Big tech is bigger than most sovereign nations. “East India Company” is the way to think about them”. While he did not name any single company in his post, Vembu was responding to a post noting that Google raised $32 billion in debt in a single day—an amount comparable to what a large country like India raises over several months—and issued a 100-year bond, a time horizon longer than many government bonds.
“Google raised $32B of debt in 1 day, what a sovereign government like India raises in 100 days. Google also issued a 100-year bond worth $1B, which is longer than India’s longest at 40 years. Big tech now operates like sovereign nations with fundraising size and time horizons,” the X post said. It referred to a Google’s recent sale of a rare 100-year bond in British pounds as part of its massive multi-currency debt raise, making it the first tech company to attempt a century bond since IBM did it back in 1996.
