What an amazing financial innovation.
If the government involves itself now it'll actually be much cheaper then if the government involves themselves after they've entangled the entire stock market and financial sector into their bet.
Maybe we can call it the pre-bailout.
They also propose that their services will be so key to some sectors (like pharma) that they'll also seek revenue sharing as part of the companies getting the privilege to use the most cutting edge intelligence. Insane stuff honestly.
All I'm going to say is I'm actually really hoping that China stays competitive in this field. Just like they are delivering EVs for $25k to the world it'd be great for all consumers and companies if they can also deliver 90% of the AI performance for 1/10 of the cost.
> Anyways, OpenAI is not in profit-seeking mode, and there's no economic incentives to do so right now.
You disparaged the article, but then immediately agreed with its main point. The fact that there is no economic incentive for OpenAI to run sustainably is a problem. It means they will happily continue to spend trillions of investor, lender, and (soon) government money, most of which is being burned as waste heat radiating from GPUs, in pursuit of an AGI pipedream.
Not being in profit seeking mode is one thing. Being so far away from profit seeking mode that you need a government bailout is an entirely different thing.
According to this[0] podcast some captains of industry in SV consider that bubbles are good, actually. At least, that is the thesis of this[1] book published by Stripe Press. Not because they'll deliver returns for their investors, but because they drive innovation in the long run. But obviously, if they are perceived to have terrible ROI, they aren't getting over the line, which leads to a dilemma – how do we reach that moonshot without fooling a bunch of people and destroying the economy along the way?
All that said, anyone who spends a lot of time with AI knows the current direction of generative AI isn't really that moonshot. But the scale of compute that is being unlocked right now, along with technologies like photonics, might be what's key to AGI.
If you show revenue, people will ask "How much?" And it will never be enough, but if you have no revenue, you can say you're pre-revenue. You're a potential pure play. It's not about how much you earn, it's about what you're worth. And who's worth the most? Companies that lose money.
Huh? They have committed to about a trillion dollars in infrastructure build out they will need to pay for. How about instead of begging tax payers to back loans to pay for this, they actually produce some profit and pay for it themselves?
I feel like this question needs to be even louder because in the past they would just mumble something about “job creation,” but that’s undermined by the fact that they also tout AI as “job replacement” to investors and clients alike.
Yeah. No revenue. Nobody wants to hear about revenue! It's not about how much you make, it is about how much you're worth and who is worth the most? Companies that lose money.
sama showed a really bad side of himself in that answer to Brad Gerstner. You can tell Gerstner thought Altman was kidding at first, but when it became apparent he was lashing out, the answer became less about the answer and more about why Sam Altman was so injured by the (very fair) question. Which, if you haven't read TFA or seen it, the question was "How are you going to make money given how much you borrowed" but Sam's answer was essentially "How dare you ask me that question, we're happy to take back your shares if you have a problem with the way things are going". That was my read on it anyway.
Corporate leadership in America has a megalomania problem. Billionaires in general have a megalomania problem. OpenAI specifically, apparently, has a megalomania problem.
Readit News
They also propose that their services will be so key to some sectors (like pharma) that they'll also seek revenue sharing as part of the companies getting the privilege to use the most cutting edge intelligence. Insane stuff honestly.
All I'm going to say is I'm actually really hoping that China stays competitive in this field. Just like they are delivering EVs for $25k to the world it'd be great for all consumers and companies if they can also deliver 90% of the AI performance for 1/10 of the cost.
Oof
Anyways, OpenAI is not in profit-seeking mode, and there's no economic incentives to do so right now.
You disparaged the article, but then immediately agreed with its main point. The fact that there is no economic incentive for OpenAI to run sustainably is a problem. It means they will happily continue to spend trillions of investor, lender, and (soon) government money, most of which is being burned as waste heat radiating from GPUs, in pursuit of an AGI pipedream.
All that said, anyone who spends a lot of time with AI knows the current direction of generative AI isn't really that moonshot. But the scale of compute that is being unlocked right now, along with technologies like photonics, might be what's key to AGI.
[0] https://shows.acast.com/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast/episode... [1] https://www.stripe.press/boom
This is a fairly new phenomenon and we don't actually know if it works. It's entirely possible this exact mentality blows up the economy.
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Yeah there certainly aren’t when you can sucker everyone else into paying for your money losing company and cash out in the secondary market.
If you owe the bank $1T, the government has a problem (you're too big to fail and will get bailed out).
They can blend leverage, 100% 1st year depreciation with using the hardware itself as a financing asset and dozens more financial engineering steps -
Their actual cost of financing is probably incredibly low already.
I worry that they are thinking of trying to run the company just ahead of debt/lease payments or something, otherwise this is just a distraction
So they want even more?
Corporate leadership in America has a megalomania problem. Billionaires in general have a megalomania problem. OpenAI specifically, apparently, has a megalomania problem.
OpenAI asks U.S. for loan guarantees to fund $1T AI expansion
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45830380