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People crying about the revenue gap constantly forget that OpenAI still hasn't turned on the ads, porn, and gambling. Trust, they will turn it on eventually.

9cb14c1ec0 10mo ago
I fully expect all three to happen.
femiagbabiaka 10mo ago
HSBC, the firm who did the analysis in the article, took into account projected revenues matching user numbers of 44% of the world's non-Chinese population.
- rvnx 10mo ago
  It would be plausible but very optimistic projection if there was no competition that is currently crushing OpenAI
  - femiagbabiaka 10mo ago
    Oh, I agree it's implausible. But GP said > People crying about the revenue gap constantly forget that OpenAI still hasn't turned on the ads, porn, and gambling But quite the opposite, HSBC assumed that they will have a virtual global monopoly on AI, and even under those projections they will still need to take on hundreds of billions of debt. I'm sure if they get there getting access to that debt will be easier than I'm assuming currently.
    - rvnx 10mo ago
      Do you believe so ? (like real question, not sarcastic here)
      - femiagbabiaka 10mo ago
        I think that a company with a global monopoly on a thinking machine that replaces wide swaths of current internet business categories, whose user base makes up most of the world outside of the GFW, would be very valuable on the public market and would probably have access to as much debt as they want, even if it had negative consequences for the world economy. Even the 2nd or 3rd place company in that race will be quite profitable. It's not impossible, just implausible.
- yabatopia 10mo ago
  With zero market share for Google. Living in AImaginationland must be nice. C’mon kids, let’s all sing the AImagination song: AImagination, AImagination, AIiiimagination, …
  - femiagbabiaka 10mo ago
    44% for OpenAI wouldn't mean 0% for Google, but considering that even Apple only has about 30% of the global smartphone marketshare, OpenAI getting there seems unlikely.
  - pksebben 10mo ago
    i don't know if it's where you got it, but that made my head go straight to Ocean from Wonder Showzen.
- famouswaffles 10mo ago
  Calling a 2% penetration 'taking into account' is pushing it. I don't think a serious push into advertising would be that low.
ecshafer 10mo ago
I think the ads will be turned on, inevitably. I hope the porn and gambling aren't turned on, but they will be. Probably under spin off companies to shield the brand, but using the tech.
- pksebben 10mo ago
  if I had my druthers, we'd leave the ads but get the porn and gambling. two out of three of those require me to want to do them for them to affect my life.
- looknee 10mo ago
  They're already turning on the porn: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2qv58yl5o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2qv58yl5o
- sethops1 10mo ago
  I am suspect that ads will be able to cover the cost of inference, much less model building, salaries, product development, etc. The ad industry is built upon _and priced for_ websites that return results for virtually zero cost. That isn't going to be true for rendering AI.
- moi2388 10mo ago
  You are more attracted to ads than porn?!
  - ecshafer 10mo ago
    Define "attracted". I believe porn and gambling both do incredible amounts of damage to society. Ads probably do some damage to society, though I can recognize some benefits in being able to advertise and market products and services. I don't believe there is any benefit to the other two.
otabdeveloper4 10mo ago
> ads, porn, and gambling We already have those at home without OpenAI. Also, the competition would be ruthless.
- moralestapia 10mo ago
  Sure, because there's one single ad network, one single place where you can gamble and one single porn site in the entire planet ...
  - Spivak 10mo ago
    That is exactly the parent's point, that while those things could bring in revenue, the competition in those industries is already incredibly fierce. And that's before potential new entrants into the space on the AI front. Even in the best of cases I don't think anyone is gonna be able to pull anything other than middling margins.
    - moralestapia 10mo ago
      They've already got (way!) more users than those other sites, though. But yeah, maybe they should give up because of the imaginary obstacles brought up here, lol. >potential new entrants into the space on the AI front Are these "potential new entrants into the space on the AI front" in the room with us right now?
      - Spivak 10mo ago
        I'm not saying they should or will give up on these markets, just that their margins aren't likely to be great. There's already so much AI porn right now. There's no reason to believe that OpenAI will be any better or able to command higher margins than their competitors. They also have the problem of being under a ton of public and regulatory scrutiny so the highest paying clientele, the people with niche unsavory fetishizes, won't be able to be serviced by them. And that's ignoring the fact that getting into this space at all is pure HN speculation and unlikely to ever happen anyway.
lm28469 10mo ago
Wouldn't that entirely kill the AGI delulu narrative (for people who still believe in it)
- michaelcampbell 10mo ago
  Delusion isn't swayed by facts. There are more than enough examples of this in the world today.
thm 10mo ago
"Google is excluded entirely"
sethops1 10mo ago
Try using the shopping feature they just launched. It's literally just jamming ads into your chat session. https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-shopping-research/ https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-shopping-research/
- testfrequency 10mo ago
  This is what they hired Fidji for, and they are going down the same dark path she took Meta down. Everything’s for sale, and they will amplify whatever == revenue.
- jazzyjackson 10mo ago
  Which is silly because the whole point of asking an AI what induction stovetop to buy is so I don't have to do "shopping research"
- marcosdumay 10mo ago
  > Alphabet annual revenue for 2024 was $350.018B, a 13.87% increase from 2023. So, they need to "just" get 20% of the market from Google to break even...
sebow 10mo ago
(Imo) They will turn to all of these(especially to porn and gambling) when the core model of "enhance your life" will slowly fade away. The "academia space", the teens/boomers demographics, all of those will stop using OpenAI at scale if they're bombarded with vices (porn, gambling, etc). Ads & referrals are already in the works, and people are generally tolerant of those. But, as with any company, appearances matter. ChatGPT will definitely lose users at the slightest possibility of having non-sanitized content served to more morally sensible groups.
- Invictus0 10mo ago
  there will be differentiated cohorts
akira_067 10mo ago
They may not be shipping good enough products, but on the flip side it still feels like they have almost no competition outside of coding and image gen. The EOL termination of 4-o should be some evidence of this.
- bildung 10mo ago
  OTOH, why don't they ship good enough products? To me all of OpenAIs recent investments strongly suggest they hit a dead end with their current LLM approach. After all, if they knew the path ahead for GPT looks great, why don't they invest into training the next big thing instead of doing datacenters with the intention of renting them out?
rchaud 10mo ago
Why would OpenAI have any sort of advantage in these industries compared to the established players? it's pretty sobering to think that the so-called harbingers of SkyNet AGI have to fall back to mafia-era revenue streams like vice to convince shareholders that their money wasn't wasted.
fullshark 10mo ago
Ads/porn I get but how does genAI powered gambling work?
- bigfishrunning 10mo ago
  "ChatGPT, here's 5 dollars. Please roll a fair die. did i win?" This is truly the most stupid timeline.
1970-01-01 10mo ago
I think you're right, however that only defeats themselves in the long run. AI is something that can be run locally, while search, shopping, movies, social, etc. cannot. And once the ads are baked into the product, you will need a force like the EU to remove them else shareholders will riot. Ads will be the perfect weapon to shoot themselves in the foot.
snowwrestler 10mo ago
Ok, probably true, but it’s still a pretty far fall from “we’re just about to deliver AGI which will put us in the driver seat of the entire global economy.” Which was the core value prop of their $trillion investment pitch. Like, there are way cheaper ways to deliver ads, porn, and gambling than training and operating huge LLMs.
an0malous 10mo ago
The cost per generation is still too expensive, they would not profit from ads and very few people pay for porn. I don't see how they'd profit from gambling either.

9cb14c1ec0 10mo ago

I fully expect all three to happen.

femiagbabiaka 10mo ago

HSBC, the firm who did the analysis in the article, took into account projected revenues matching user numbers of 44% of the world's non-Chinese population.

rvnx 10mo ago
It would be plausible but very optimistic projection if there was no competition that is currently crushing OpenAI
- femiagbabiaka 10mo ago
  Oh, I agree it's implausible. But GP said > People crying about the revenue gap constantly forget that OpenAI still hasn't turned on the ads, porn, and gambling But quite the opposite, HSBC assumed that they will have a virtual global monopoly on AI, and even under those projections they will still need to take on hundreds of billions of debt. I'm sure if they get there getting access to that debt will be easier than I'm assuming currently.
  - rvnx 10mo ago
    Do you believe so ? (like real question, not sarcastic here)
    - femiagbabiaka 10mo ago
      I think that a company with a global monopoly on a thinking machine that replaces wide swaths of current internet business categories, whose user base makes up most of the world outside of the GFW, would be very valuable on the public market and would probably have access to as much debt as they want, even if it had negative consequences for the world economy. Even the 2nd or 3rd place company in that race will be quite profitable. It's not impossible, just implausible.
yabatopia 10mo ago
With zero market share for Google. Living in AImaginationland must be nice. C’mon kids, let’s all sing the AImagination song: AImagination, AImagination, AIiiimagination, …
- femiagbabiaka 10mo ago
  44% for OpenAI wouldn't mean 0% for Google, but considering that even Apple only has about 30% of the global smartphone marketshare, OpenAI getting there seems unlikely.
- pksebben 10mo ago
  i don't know if it's where you got it, but that made my head go straight to Ocean from Wonder Showzen.
famouswaffles 10mo ago
Calling a 2% penetration 'taking into account' is pushing it. I don't think a serious push into advertising would be that low.

ecshafer 10mo ago

I think the ads will be turned on, inevitably. I hope the porn and gambling aren't turned on, but they will be. Probably under spin off companies to shield the brand, but using the tech.

pksebben 10mo ago
if I had my druthers, we'd leave the ads but get the porn and gambling. two out of three of those require me to want to do them for them to affect my life.
looknee 10mo ago
They're already turning on the porn: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2qv58yl5o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2qv58yl5o
sethops1 10mo ago
I am suspect that ads will be able to cover the cost of inference, much less model building, salaries, product development, etc. The ad industry is built upon _and priced for_ websites that return results for virtually zero cost. That isn't going to be true for rendering AI.
moi2388 10mo ago
You are more attracted to ads than porn?!
- ecshafer 10mo ago
  Define "attracted". I believe porn and gambling both do incredible amounts of damage to society. Ads probably do some damage to society, though I can recognize some benefits in being able to advertise and market products and services. I don't believe there is any benefit to the other two.

otabdeveloper4 10mo ago

> ads, porn, and gambling We already have those at home without OpenAI. Also, the competition would be ruthless.

moralestapia 10mo ago
Sure, because there's one single ad network, one single place where you can gamble and one single porn site in the entire planet ...
- Spivak 10mo ago
  That is exactly the parent's point, that while those things could bring in revenue, the competition in those industries is already incredibly fierce. And that's before potential new entrants into the space on the AI front. Even in the best of cases I don't think anyone is gonna be able to pull anything other than middling margins.
  - moralestapia 10mo ago
    They've already got (way!) more users than those other sites, though. But yeah, maybe they should give up because of the imaginary obstacles brought up here, lol. >potential new entrants into the space on the AI front Are these "potential new entrants into the space on the AI front" in the room with us right now?
    - Spivak 10mo ago
      I'm not saying they should or will give up on these markets, just that their margins aren't likely to be great. There's already so much AI porn right now. There's no reason to believe that OpenAI will be any better or able to command higher margins than their competitors. They also have the problem of being under a ton of public and regulatory scrutiny so the highest paying clientele, the people with niche unsavory fetishizes, won't be able to be serviced by them. And that's ignoring the fact that getting into this space at all is pure HN speculation and unlikely to ever happen anyway.

lm28469 10mo ago

Wouldn't that entirely kill the AGI delulu narrative (for people who still believe in it)

michaelcampbell 10mo ago
Delusion isn't swayed by facts. There are more than enough examples of this in the world today.

thm 10mo ago

"Google is excluded entirely"

sethops1 10mo ago

Try using the shopping feature they just launched. It's literally just jamming ads into your chat session. https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-shopping-research/ https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-shopping-research/

testfrequency 10mo ago
This is what they hired Fidji for, and they are going down the same dark path she took Meta down. Everything’s for sale, and they will amplify whatever == revenue.
jazzyjackson 10mo ago
Which is silly because the whole point of asking an AI what induction stovetop to buy is so I don't have to do "shopping research"
marcosdumay 10mo ago
> Alphabet annual revenue for 2024 was $350.018B, a 13.87% increase from 2023. So, they need to "just" get 20% of the market from Google to break even...

sebow 10mo ago

(Imo) They will turn to all of these(especially to porn and gambling) when the core model of "enhance your life" will slowly fade away. The "academia space", the teens/boomers demographics, all of those will stop using OpenAI at scale if they're bombarded with vices (porn, gambling, etc). Ads & referrals are already in the works, and people are generally tolerant of those. But, as with any company, appearances matter. ChatGPT will definitely lose users at the slightest possibility of having non-sanitized content served to more morally sensible groups.

Invictus0 10mo ago
there will be differentiated cohorts

akira_067 10mo ago

They may not be shipping good enough products, but on the flip side it still feels like they have almost no competition outside of coding and image gen. The EOL termination of 4-o should be some evidence of this.

bildung 10mo ago
OTOH, why don't they ship good enough products? To me all of OpenAIs recent investments strongly suggest they hit a dead end with their current LLM approach. After all, if they knew the path ahead for GPT looks great, why don't they invest into training the next big thing instead of doing datacenters with the intention of renting them out?

rchaud 10mo ago

Why would OpenAI have any sort of advantage in these industries compared to the established players? it's pretty sobering to think that the so-called harbingers of SkyNet AGI have to fall back to mafia-era revenue streams like vice to convince shareholders that their money wasn't wasted.

fullshark 10mo ago

Ads/porn I get but how does genAI powered gambling work?

bigfishrunning 10mo ago
"ChatGPT, here's 5 dollars. Please roll a fair die. did i win?" This is truly the most stupid timeline.

1970-01-01 10mo ago

I think you're right, however that only defeats themselves in the long run. AI is something that can be run locally, while search, shopping, movies, social, etc. cannot. And once the ads are baked into the product, you will need a force like the EU to remove them else shareholders will riot. Ads will be the perfect weapon to shoot themselves in the foot.

snowwrestler 10mo ago

Ok, probably true, but it’s still a pretty far fall from “we’re just about to deliver AGI which will put us in the driver seat of the entire global economy.” Which was the core value prop of their $trillion investment pitch. Like, there are way cheaper ways to deliver ads, porn, and gambling than training and operating huge LLMs.

an0malous 10mo ago

The cost per generation is still too expensive, they would not profit from ads and very few people pay for porn. I don't see how they'd profit from gambling either.