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Is OpenAI profitable (yet)? I thought their game plan originally was to raise a TON of money in order to not be (very) financially burdened while doing the lon

Is OpenAI profitable (yet)? I thought their game plan originally was to raise a TON of money in order to not be (very) financially burdened while doing the long-term R&D necessary to build what would (hopefully) become AI models so advanced they could be traditionally monetized and level out the huge company debts. Funding startups (see: taking risky bets on time _and_ money) doesn't seem to fit into that model... unless: 1. They've built a financially-viable product [*] and have the spare time and money to start paying for adoption/growth. 2. They're adding more risk to their debts now to bet on a much bigger payoff from startups using their tech later [*]. So I guess my question is... why are they doing this? [*] I use both GPT-2 and GPT-3 almost daily and don't have a masterful understanding of either, but they both do fall short of 90% of their hype/marketing. They're amazing jumps forward, but... nobody built lasting businesses on Markov chains when they were new, either. I wouldn't want to build a business propped up solely on either of them yet.

tyre 5y ago
The page says that OpenAI only manages the fund. The money comes from Microsoft and “others”. So if you’re OpenAI, there’s not much financial cost. What you get in return is companies using your service for a wide range of applications. You get all of their data streaming into your system, with constant feedback for you to iterate your models. It makes a lot of sense for them. For businesses, though, welcome to training Microsoft and whoever those “others” are. OpenAI took a huge amount of funding in itself from MSFT. So a company is helping OpenAI build models to replicate what they do, giving MSFT access to those models, along with whoever the others are, and letting them wait until the experience is excellent before jumping in. Sure, they only have access to the data and models. Except, oops, they also _invested_ in your company so they have access to your financials as well. They get regular status updates on whether what you’re doing makes sense. But if OpenAI is the best out there, even if training their models could eventually kill you, what choice do you have? Develop your own AI to compete against their head start and billions? You won’t win.
stingraycharles 5y ago
From how I read it, it’s not as if they’re spending their own money, but rather starting a new fund with other people’s money. It says specifically that OpenAI is managing the fund, and others are bringing money on the table. Whether that distracts them from their core mission is up to discussion, but I don’t think they’re increasing their debts or anything like that.

tyre 5y ago

The page says that OpenAI only manages the fund. The money comes from Microsoft and “others”. So if you’re OpenAI, there’s not much financial cost. What you get in return is companies using your service for a wide range of applications. You get all of their data streaming into your system, with constant feedback for you to iterate your models. It makes a lot of sense for them. For businesses, though, welcome to training Microsoft and whoever those “others” are. OpenAI took a huge amount of funding in itself from MSFT. So a company is helping OpenAI build models to replicate what they do, giving MSFT access to those models, along with whoever the others are, and letting them wait until the experience is excellent before jumping in. Sure, they only have access to the data and models. Except, oops, they also _invested_ in your company so they have access to your financials as well. They get regular status updates on whether what you’re doing makes sense. But if OpenAI is the best out there, even if training their models could eventually kill you, what choice do you have? Develop your own AI to compete against their head start and billions? You won’t win.

stingraycharles 5y ago

From how I read it, it’s not as if they’re spending their own money, but rather starting a new fund with other people’s money. It says specifically that OpenAI is managing the fund, and others are bringing money on the table. Whether that distracts them from their core mission is up to discussion, but I don’t think they’re increasing their debts or anything like that.