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Serious question, is this an actual risk or is this the business equivalent of writing a panicked tweet that my car has lost 6 gallons of fuel already and may r

Serious question, is this an actual risk or is this the business equivalent of writing a panicked tweet that my car has lost 6 gallons of fuel already and may run out in a matter of hours? Because to me it sounds closer to the latter

dragontamer 2y ago
We're in 2024, a year where venture capital is drying up and interest rates are much higher. > that my car has lost 6 gallons of fuel already and may run out in a matter of hours? Are you driving in a large desert where it is known that there are fewer gas stations on the average? Current economic conditions do not look good for anyone raising capital today. Maybe things are fine a year from now but this ain't the 2010s anymore. OpenAI has enough name brand recognition that they're probably fine (maybe they get a loan at a % higher than healthy, but that's survivable). But there's clearly risks in running out of cash this year.
- some_random 2y ago
  AI companies do not seem to be having issues finding cash from VCs, and the idea that OpenAI of all companies might not be able to find investors willing to give them money seems crazy to me, but maybe that's discussed in the paywalled article I wouldn't know.
  - techjamie 2y ago
    Given how much stock Microsoft is putting into them, I would fully expect them to prop OpenAI up with funding, or possibly even buy them outright once the cost is low enough. Plus, they're still giving away ChatGPT for free and not forcing payment for it. If they were imminently worried about solvency, you'd be seeing changes in business tactics to try and prevent that.
    - trog 2y ago
      They are desperately trying to get it entrenched in company workflows, so when they close it off people pay no questions asked. It's not clear to me if people find it useful enough to pay for, and even where it is, I can't make the basic economics work at this sort of cash burn rate. Like at the moment there's little chance our org would pay more for it per head than we do for our groupware (about $20/mo). I guess if every single business does it for every seat it'll pan out - and that's why they're keeping it free - but it seems more likely the useful bits of it are gonna be embedded in all the other software we already pay for.
kangstag 2y ago
Probably the later. OpenAI has a ton of revenue and I’m guessing their massive amount of spending is for developing cutting edge LLMs. If there’s a danger of running out of money, they could always cut back on spending. Or they could raise more which is probably pretty feasible goven that they’re OpenAI

dragontamer 2y ago

We're in 2024, a year where venture capital is drying up and interest rates are much higher. > that my car has lost 6 gallons of fuel already and may run out in a matter of hours? Are you driving in a large desert where it is known that there are fewer gas stations on the average? Current economic conditions do not look good for anyone raising capital today. Maybe things are fine a year from now but this ain't the 2010s anymore. OpenAI has enough name brand recognition that they're probably fine (maybe they get a loan at a % higher than healthy, but that's survivable). But there's clearly risks in running out of cash this year.

some_random 2y ago
AI companies do not seem to be having issues finding cash from VCs, and the idea that OpenAI of all companies might not be able to find investors willing to give them money seems crazy to me, but maybe that's discussed in the paywalled article I wouldn't know.
- techjamie 2y ago
  Given how much stock Microsoft is putting into them, I would fully expect them to prop OpenAI up with funding, or possibly even buy them outright once the cost is low enough. Plus, they're still giving away ChatGPT for free and not forcing payment for it. If they were imminently worried about solvency, you'd be seeing changes in business tactics to try and prevent that.
  - trog 2y ago
    They are desperately trying to get it entrenched in company workflows, so when they close it off people pay no questions asked. It's not clear to me if people find it useful enough to pay for, and even where it is, I can't make the basic economics work at this sort of cash burn rate. Like at the moment there's little chance our org would pay more for it per head than we do for our groupware (about $20/mo). I guess if every single business does it for every seat it'll pan out - and that's why they're keeping it free - but it seems more likely the useful bits of it are gonna be embedded in all the other software we already pay for.

kangstag 2y ago

Probably the later. OpenAI has a ton of revenue and I’m guessing their massive amount of spending is for developing cutting edge LLMs. If there’s a danger of running out of money, they could always cut back on spending. Or they could raise more which is probably pretty feasible goven that they’re OpenAI