OpenAI Could Lose $5 Billion This Year 29
OpenAI has built one of the fastest-growing businesses in history. It may also be one of the costliest to run. The Information: The ChatGPT maker could lose as much as $5 billion this year [non-paywalled source], according to an analysis by The Information, based on previously undisclosed internal financial data and people involved in the business. [...] On the cost side, OpenAI as of March was on track to spend nearly $4 billion this year on renting Microsoft's servers to power ChatGPT and its underlying LLMs (otherwise known as inference costs), said a person with direct knowledge of the spending. In addition to running ChatGPT, OpenAI's training costs -- including paying for data -- could balloon to as much as $3 billion this year. Last year, OpenAI ramped up the training of new AI faster than it had originally planned, said a person with direct knowledge of the decision. So while the company earlier planned to spend about $800 million on such costs, it ended up spending considerably more, this person said.
Wherefore AI? (Score:3, Insightful)
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You're the one without kids in school.
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Its like when they changed it from tissue to "kleenex", or servers/saas to "cloud".
You should correct your kids.
Re:Wherefore AI? (Score:5, Insightful)
AI, as the term is currently used, is far beyond what people previously associated with programming. It is not flowchart-based with clear debuggable chains of processing from inputs to outputs. AI can do many of the tasks that were previously to complex for computers, but still can't do anything that requires intelligent oversight.
It can 'write' standard notes for you, generate voices, photos, and videos that aren't (yet) terrific, but for most people it's more than they could do themselves and that means no longer needing to hire an artist to create things for you... Mainly stuff you wouldn't have been willing to pay for previously, but not always.
It is going to be extremely disruptive, and pretending otherwise is just a good way to be caught unprepared.
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It can 'write' standard notes for you, generate voices, photos, and videos that aren't (yet) terrific, but for most people it's more than they could do themselves and that means no longer needing to hire an artist to create things for you...
Presently though, most of the stuff it creates lands right in an uncanny valley where most people can tell something is just a bit off about it. Yea, eventually it will get better and might start putting more creative types out of work, but as it is those were already difficult fields to make a living in. The "starving artist" cliche exists for a reason.
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AI, as the term is currently used, is far beyond what people previously associated with programming. It is not flowchart-based with clear debuggable chains of processing from inputs to outputs. AI can do many of the tasks that were previously to complex for computers, but still can't do anything that requires intelligent oversight.
It can 'write' standard notes for you, generate voices, photos, and videos that aren't (yet) terrific, but for most people it's more than they could do themselves and that means no longer needing to hire an artist to create things for you... Mainly stuff you wouldn't have been willing to pay for previously, but not always.
It is going to be extremely disruptive, and pretending otherwise is just a good way to be caught unprepared.
From my few tests, I still need an artist as what comes out of AI generated images is barely related to what I requested.
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In fact, I didnt mention it at all in my post. If you want to change the narrative of what AI does, which is steal works public or private to manipulate them to produce shit output, then more power to you. Recognize you are against large companies that have dumped some dollars into it, claiming its "Billions of dollars" (bullshit), and trying to
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Your ignorance of the technology is not the virtue you think it is.
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I have kids in school, and they aren't interested in AI. Some of their friends amuse themselves by trying to make AI chatbots say things that sound racist and/or homoerotic.
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Re: Wherefore AI? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is you. I hear AI this AI that everywhere. I am sick and tired of people talking about it frankly.
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Re:Wherefore AI? (Score:4, Interesting)
In my day-to-day life, I don't hear people talk about AI, at all. Zero. IRL or online. It's only on Slashdot that I see it constantly the focus of attention. Am I the odd one out?
Don't know if you're the odd one out. I do have friends who use it though. I know one person who lives in a foreign country and is using it to improve their English skills. Seems to be helping in a positive way. And I know another person who is a deeply committed Christian and is using it to help with Bible study and they seem pretty happy with the results, although they did have to give ChatGPT some very specific instructions on basically just sticking to the text.
I can tell you that music streaming services are going big time into AI, in part to produce new music that no real human created or played on so they don't have to play royalties on it. Pretty soon the kids are going to be listening to that.
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I can tell you that music streaming services are going big time into AI, in part to produce new music that no real human created or played on so they don't have to play royalties on it. Pretty soon the kids are going to be listening to that.
Maybe elevator music, but nothing you're going to go out of your way to listen to.
Music is fundamentally about human connection, that's why labels are always looking to attractive charismatic singers, and bands always play up stories of their antics. People want a lot of drama and human connection to be associated with the song.
It doesn't matter how good an AI song is, people will always prefer one made by a human artist.
Now, human artists using AI to help them write/compose will probably be a thing, but it
Re: Wherefore AI? (Score:2)
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Everyone with a phone. No really go check the feature list.
This isn't the last either (Score:2)
This won't be the last. Every single company featuring LLM as a key initiative invested far to aggressively and quickly into the segment.
2024/2025 will be the reckoning as these investments fail to pay, and shareholders will foot the bill.
Executives are dangerous when they start hearing popular buzzwords.
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Imagine if they had to pay for training material (Score:2)
Would likely be in the trillions of dollars in expenses.
AI is a great... (Score:2, Interesting)
...long term research project
It will not be profitable in the short term and the pressure to make money now will result in a tsunami of half-baked AI crap, followed by disappointment and some bankruptcies. The survivors will continue the work and eventually, useful stuff will be invented
It's OK (Score:3)
They'll make up for it in volume.
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They'll make up for it in volume.
This is more of a "the first one is free" kind of thing.
Right now all the AI companies are giving away their product for free to get companies using it. They're hoping that by the time they're forced to jack up the price for it companies will be dependent on it. I don't see that happening.
Giant sales pitch (Score:4, Interesting)
OpenAI has developed a technology that does some really cool stuff. They're letting everyone try it out for free. But if you want to use it for something productive, like summarizing overly-long emails, or for an integrated code editor, or to help you create that pivot table, you're going to pay. Not just a license fee, but a monthly subscription. And it's a subscription for *each* thing you want to do with it. So yeah, nice free demo they've got there, but the costs are just too high.
Fake money (Score:3)
Remember that Microsoft is their largest investor. And that the investment is not in $$ but in-kind, aka providing cloud services (storage and processing).
So the $4 Billion cost is not actually spending any money, it is just what Microsoft would have charged at retail rates for the free cloud service they are providing to OpenAI.
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The more you lose the more you're worth! (Score:2)
Open source never pays. (Score:2)
This is proof that open source never pays. /s