Mark Cuban says AI will create the world’s first trillionaire.
The billionaire entrepreneur made the claim on the "High Performance" podcast, saying the key will be whoever figures out a new way to harness AI.
"We haven’t seen the best, or the craziest, of what [AI] is going to be able to do,"
said Cuban.
"Not only do I think it’ll create a trillionaire, but it could be just one dude in the basement. That’s how crazy it could be."
Cuban points to current AI uses like scheduling, virtual companions, and corporate hiring efficiencies, such as Chipotle cutting hiring time by 75% with AI tools.
He calls this phase the "preseason" of AI’s potential. Cuban compares it to early PCs and smartphones, saying people will soon wonder how they ever lived without AI technology.
"Remember the early days of PCs and people were like, ‘I don’t need that. … What’s this internet thing? Why do we need it?’ Then it was smartphones,"
Cuban added.
"We’ll find something equivalent for AI and then, five years [later] … people will be like, ‘How did I live without it?’ People will make a lot of money."
Cuban cautions AI isn’t truly smart or thinking, but it excels at finding and packaging information. He urges users to interact critically with AI outputs to improve biases and accuracy.
"You have to realize that it’s not actually thinking … It’s not actually smart,"
Cuban said.
"But what it can do is find information and package it in a way that people can understand."
He also acknowledges AI’s challenges: job disruption, scams, misinformation, and its environmental footprint—citing training GPT-3 requires enough electricity to power 120 U.S. homes for a year.
Still, Cuban recommends everyone jump on AI now and start experimenting with tools like Google Gemini and ChatGPT.
The future AI trillionaire? Could be anyone with the right idea—and a basement.
