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> OpenAI considered building everything in-house and raising capital for an expensive plan to build a network of factories known as "foundries" for chip manufac
by jsheard 2y ago
> OpenAI considered building everything in-house and raising capital for an expensive plan to build a network of factories known as "foundries" for chip manufacturing. The company has dropped the ambitious foundry plans for now due to the costs and time needed to build a network
That framing massively undersells how insane Sams ambitions were there, he was floating the idea of somehow raising seven trillion dollars to build thirty six fabs dedicated to making AI silicon. The TSMC execs reported more or less laughed in his face when he brought it up it them.
- cal5k 2y agoIt's kind of admirable, though. If you start asking for $7T, only asking for $1T becomes quite reasonable ;-)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lyu07282 2y agoOnly if they stop laughing long enough for them to hear your second offer
- yreg 2y agoWell they did stop laughing, hence this thread.
- discreteevent 2y agoNot really. The plans to build a foundry have been dropped. It's more a cautionary tale that at some point you will end up in an environment that's closer to reality where your bullshit is a liability. It was reported that the TSMC people called him a 'podcasting bro'. In other words, they lost all respect for anything he was saying.
- latexr 2y agoThat only works if the initial request isn’t so bonkers that no one can trust subsequent ones.
- cal5k 2y agoTrue. I think Sam might get a "bonkers" pass because of his track record that the rest of us might not.
- latexr 2y agoHe’s exactly the person I wouldn’t give a pass to, because of his track record. I wouldn’t give a penny to a cryptocurrency scammer. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-crypto-eyeball-scanning-orb-problems https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-... https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoin-cryptocurrency-biometrics-web3/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoi... Especially not one whose business plan is “let’s invent fairytale technology then ask it how to make money”. https://x.com/geepytee/status/1778859803735113950 https://x.com/geepytee/status/1778859803735113950 If all of that sounds good to you, I know of a bridge you may be interested in purchasing.
- ionwake 2y ago[flagged]
- latexr 2y agoI’m not your bro. The thing that’s absolutely wrong (and quite frankly inscrutable) about people who think like you is that you all believe everyone is money hungry like yourselves and you are utterly incapable of imagining anyone whose life doesn’t revolve around wealth. Most people aren’t envious of “crypto bros” nor are they mad they didn’t “get rich” in a zero-sum scam most lost money on. That’s how you would feel. Fortunately the world is more diverse than that and there are people with healthier priorities.
- notyourwork 2y agoShoot for the stars and you get to the moon.
- paul7986 2y agoand fake it before you make it ...im still waiting for GPT's version of H.E.R.... many months later nowhere to be found yet no doubt that juiced their revenue. The startup playbook lie ur ass off and make sh!t up. Musk still does it to this day with the recent demo of his Optimus robots implying they were all AI driven.
- ionwake 2y agoI have to say I’m really weirded out by the decision to sort of pretend they weren’t remotely controlled
- paul7986 2y agowhy that's what many start-uppers do to win the startup game ..fake it .. lie. Would you trust your life to Elon's self driving tech which you sign away your rights to sue lol Some with deadly consequences like Uber's attempt at self driving and what was that other recent self driving company that ran over / mangled a pedestrian?
- ionwake 2y agoYes but in this case it was clearly apparent to most and to those who spoke with the robot and believed it must have felt like morons for being filmed thinking they were real. I just felt the benefits weren’t there as it was an obvious fakery. Tbh when they had the real person on the suit I wouldn’t have approved that it would give the impression I’m ok with pretending to an extent. I understand having a half working prototype iPhone on stage but literally pretending the robots are real just felt dishonest and a bad idea. But hey I’m not a Vc
- paul7986 2y ago
- kkielhofner 2y agoFor reference seven trillion dollars is 25% of US GDP. Yeah, that's um, wild.
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- xyst 2y agoIt’s just 1/5th of the current USA national debt of $35T, bro. Just have fed run those money printers 365/24/7.
- elcritch 2y agoNah, just have their AGI hack the Fed to print those trillions. No need for pesky human politicians to get involved.
- skywhopper 2y agoYou don’t go into debt by printing money.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoAs anyone with 2 brain cells should have. You don't just acquire $7T. The ENTIRE US domestic Net Investment isn't even $1T: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W790RC1Q027SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W790RC1Q027SBEA Gross Fixed Capital Formation (Net Investment + Deprecation) isn't much more: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NFIRSAXDCUSQ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NFIRSAXDCUSQ Google, Apple, and Microsoft together don't even spend $100B on CapEx per year. And they're worth almost $10T put together. Asking for $7T when you're a $100B company is so ridiculous it's beyond belief.
- hu3 2y agoHe would have to have AGI proof to ask for this unprecedented kind of investing money. And even them it would have to be split during a decade or two. And even then. What's the military budget of USA?
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoIt doesn't matter what the military budget is. Most of it is spent on personnel and operation. You'd want to know only what the procurement is - which is ~$146B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... And most of that is part of Gross Fixed Capital Formation already...
- shreezus 2y ago[flagged]
- snovv_crash 2y ago$7T can buy a hell of a lot of human intelligence. At that price I'm not sure AS/GI is cost competitive.
- bboygravity 2y agoYou think summoning machine god would not be cost competitive? God as in smarter than all of humanity combined times infinity (or at least a very large number). Earning back the 7T with god/satan on your side could be trivial and at the same time the least of your worries for other reasons (maybe god doesn't like you and/or doesn't care about you).
- nobunaga 2y agoSome people (like yourselves) are so delusional that you are capable of considering wasting 7T$ on something that is a glorified autocomplete technology. We kind of a need a reset in the tech industry to get rid of mindsets like yours. AGI is still so far away and when the AI bubble eventually bursts, you will probably still try to convince yourself it still only needs 7T$. The state of people in the tech industry is sad.
- meiraleal 2y ago> Some people (like yourselves) are so delusional that you are capable of considering wasting 7T$ on something that is a glorified autocomplete technology. You know that to many, you are the delusional one if you think that some fictional number in a screen is more important than this glorified autocomplete technology that has the potential to revolutionize humanity as much as agriculture, electricity and the internet.
- bboygravity 2y agoWhere in my post did I say that I think it's a good idea to spend 7T on that?
- a13n 2y agoIt could have been strategy instead of insanity. By starting conversations at $7T you anchor high and potentially drive a greater outcome than starting an order of magnitude lower.
- jsheard 2y agoUsually when doing anchoring you want to end up at a result less than what you originally asked for but crucially more than zero, and OpenAI immediately folded on building any fabs whatsoever, so I don't think it worked.
- adventured 2y agoWhen you do something that stupid - starting at $7 trillion - you end the conversation before it really begins because you lose all credibility with the people that matter (eg TSMC and other investors). If he had said $250 billion and six fabs, it would have been a lot to ask but people wouldn't think he was ignorant or irrational for saying it. Big tech for example has that kind of money to throw around spread out across a decade if the investment is a truly great opportunity.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoAsking for $7T is - seriously - only slightly more absurd than asking for infinity dollars.
- lyu07282 2y agoI guess he thinks his glorified markov chain will lead to ASI if scaled up sufficiently. Even if we get ASI, the likelihood that anybody will ever make any money from it is so delusional. This isn't going to be your average brainwashed peasant, crushing these capitalist pigs is probably the first thing it's gonna do.
- GaggiX 2y agoThis comment honestly feels delusional.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoAnd that's 7T just to build the fabs, then they'd need tons more money to build the hardware to put the chips in, datacenters, staff, software, etc.
- ForHackernews 2y agoApproaching Adam Neumann-levels of grandiosity. Could it be possible that OpenAI's new autocomplete will be as transformative to the global economy as WeWork's short term office rentals?
- jordanb 2y agoAnd to think Satya Nadella looked at this guy and his plan and said "this is the kind of stable genius we need running OpenAI."
- atleastoptimal 2y agoIf you don't believe ASI is possible, 7T is way too high. If you believe ASI is possible, 7T is wayyy too low, thus 7T is a compromise if you believe there's a non-certain chance of ASI being possible
- camjw 2y agoSurely this “logic” applies to every positive amount of dollars. Why not 700T
- pixl97 2y agoSo the question is, if you have AGI/ASI how much productive work could you get done with it? When looking at things like mechanization and the productivity increases from around 1880 to now, you took an economy from around 10 billion a year to 14 trillion. This involved mechanization and digitization. We live in a world that someone from 1880 really couldn't imagine. What I don't know how to answer (or at least search properly) is how much investment this took over that 150 year period. I'm going to assume it's vastly more than $7 trillion. If $7 trillion in investment and manufacturing allowed us to produce human level+ AI then the economic benefits of this would be in the tend to hundreds of trillions. Now, this isn't saying it would be good for me and you personally, but the capability to apply intelligence to problems and provide solutions would grow very rapidly and dramatically change the world we live in now.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago> If $7 trillion in investment and manufacturing allowed us to produce human level+ AI then the economic benefits of this would be in the tend to hundreds of trillions. Sure, but right now that "if" is trying to do 7 trillion dollars of unsubstantiated heavy lifting. I might be able to start creating Iron Man-style arc reactors in a cave with a box of scraps and all I ask is 1 trillion, so you all should invest given how much money unlimited free energy is worth.
- atleastoptimal 2y agoThe amount is just how quickly you scale up. Invest more money now and get ASi earlier.
- bravetraveler 2y agoMaybe I'm just jaded, but I think even one fab deserves a laugh. Design, sure. Fabrication? Hah.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bronco21016 2y ago> The TSMC execs reported more or less laughed in his face when he brought it up it them. Reminds me of: Musk flew there with Cantrell, prepared to purchase three ICBMs for $21 million. But to Musk's disappointment, the Russians now claimed that they wanted $21 million for each rocket, and then taunted the future SpaceX founder. As Cantrell recounted to Esquire: “They said, 'Oh, little boy, you don't have the money?”
- Terr_ 2y agoAlong with the grandiose promotional nutty-ness of "You need to support my company because countries will fight wars over AI", whatever that FOMO scarcity is supposed to mean in practice.
- coffeemug 2y agoSam explicitly commented on this claim. He said we’ll _collectively_, _eventually_ need to spend 7 trillion dollars on compute to meet demand. Not OpenAI raising 7 trillion to build all the capacity itself.
- fordacious 2y agoThis is true and I'm sad to see the hacker news crowd blindly repeating falsehoods.
- fhdsgbbcaA 2y ago[flagged]
- jstummbillig 2y agoBuilding a character without being all that concerned with the truth is a way to have anything plausibly fit the character. But the resulting character is not real. It's fiction.
- asadotzler 2y agoAfter getting laughed at he walked back his initial proposals?
- newswasboring 2y agoCan you cite a source for this? When was this said? Was this something said before these meetings or a walk back after they laughed him out of the room.
- stainablesteel 2y agothere's a recent a clip of Masa at a bloomberg conference quoting 9T on a similar idea, i think he said he thought it was actually a good buy
- okdood64 2y ago> The TSMC execs reported more or less laughed in his face when he brought it up it them. Source?
- nolist_policy 2y agohttps://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-execs-allegedly-dismissed-openai-ceo-sam-altman-as-podcasting-bro https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-execs-allege...
- xnx 2y agoMake no small plans ... Make bombastically ridiculous ones?
- monocasa 2y agoPart of what is so nutty is that 36 fabs don't cost $7T. That would put the cost of each fab at around $200B.
- trhway 2y ago>he was floating the idea of somehow raising seven trillion dollars when i read that news back then, i read it as "billions" and thought "that sounds very ambitious, hardly he'll get that money". Man, i'm 3 orders of magnitude behind the current state of the art in tech, and need to start thinking in trillions (while it was only recently when a billion dollars was large money).
- mensetmanusman 2y agoI truly wonder how long it would’ve taken for something like ChatGPT to exist and takeoff if Sam hadn’t had such crazy ambitions.
- mmmBacon 2y agoSam may be talented in other areas but HW, chips, and infrastructure is obviously not his forte and he should probably delegate discussion on this topic to someone who knows what they are talking about.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]