One of the tech world’s most outspoken voices, Mark Cuban has always been happy to share his opinions. This candidness served him well as a judge on Shark Tank, where he spent years critiquing startup ideas.
Since leaving the show, Cuban has mostly been busy with Cost Plus Drugs, his public benefit corporation that offers medications at extremely low prices to consumers who need them. But he’s also kept busy sharing his takes on many pressing topics on social media, maintaining a presence both on X and Bluesky.
Recently, though, Cuban took the stage South by Southwest (SXSW), Austin, Texas’ yearly celebration of the convergence of tech and culture. He shared some opinions on technology, highlighting what he believes entrepreneurs should focus on.
Like many tech leaders, Cuban is closely watching the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence (AI). And he thinks he knows how it can be best utilized.
Mark Cuban recently told a crowd at SXSW what he thinks the future of AI will be like.
Cuban sees a significant opportunity ahead, but only for those who play it right
As someone who has spent decades building and scaling successful tech companies, Cuban knows something about how the industry evolves. And at SXSW, he didn’t hold back, laying out exactly where he believes the industry will go from here.
While addressing the cheering crowd, Cuban noted that the tech sector is shifting so fast that it can be difficult to keep up. He acknowledged that incorporating AI into an established business presents different challenges than building a new company around it.
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Nevertheless, Cuban highlighted the importance of AI and of understanding it. He advised modern entrepreneurs, both established and aspiring, to spend “every waking minute learning about AI” to properly harness its potential, stating that if he were in his teens or twenties, he would be doing exactly that.
He’s clearly still focused on learning about it, though, as Cuban added that he frequently listens to podcasts about AI.
That said, he also made it absolutely clear that while he sees it as an extremely important transformational technology, he doesn’t believe that anyone should rely on it completely. “AI is never the answer,” Cuban stated. “AI is the tool. Whatever skills you have, you can use AI to amplify them.”
While noting the benefits that AI can provide, Cuban highlighted the expertise that chatbots can bring to users. He named AI models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, as well as Perplexity and Google GOOGL Gemini, as examples of AI tools that can provide significant expertise.
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Cuban didn’t deny that AI chatbots make mistakes, using this to highlight the problems with relying on them completely. However, he also noted that humans “don’t always get it right, either.”
As Cuban sees it, a future driven by AI doesn’t have to be scary
As AI systems have become more sophisticated in recent years, some people have worried that it will lead us to a future that resembles a science fiction film in which robots replace humans and assume control of everything.
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However, that doesn’t have to happen if Cuban’s hypothesis is correct. He seems to see a future in which AI technology assists humans with typical tasks but does not take over their entire lives.
“Cuban clarified that he doesn’t believe AI will replace everything or that entrepreneurs should focus on AI unless they want to,” reports the Austin-American Statesman.“Instead, he emphasized that AI can simplify tasks and make success more attainable, as ideas can be spread in new, inventive ways more quickly and at a lower cost than in previous generations.”
One limit that Cuban sees AI having is its inability to tell a good story from a bad one. He noted that he can create AI-generated videos, but implied that they aren’t good, stressing the need for human creativity but highlighting a way in which AI can assist.
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