Altman calls AI tokens ‘fake’ that Nvidia CEO offered to pay engineers beyond salary
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, expresses his views on AI tokens during a podcast with John Collison. He argues that AI tokens are not a good measure of business value despite their popularity among customers. Altman believes customers prefer clarity in pricing and are uncomfortable with vague billing methods. He highlights that customers would rather pay more for consistent token amounts, even if…
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed AI tokens as a "fake form of a business" during a podcast interview with Stripe cofounder John Collison. While he acknowledged customers' preference for token-based pricing, Altman questioned the practicality of the system. He stated that customers prefer knowing exactly how much they are paying for, even if the number is artificially inflated, rather than being billed based on the actual work done by an AI model.
Altman remarked that tokens are a "kind of fake unit" from a business value perspective but are real in the sense that customers can count them. He added that customers were uncomfortable with the idea of receiving a bill without understanding what they were paying for, and they would rather pay more for the same output if it was priced in consistent tokens.
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