A lot can happen between now and then that would cause their expenses to grow even more, for example if they need to start licensing the content they use for training.
On the other hand some breakthrough in either hardware or software could make AI models significantly cheaper to run and/or train. The current cost in silicon is insane and just screams that there's efficiencies to be found. As always, in a gold rush, sell pickaxes
Wait, since when it had not been? Or are you telling me that vastly the fastest growing platform in history with multiple payment gates (subscriptions, pay per token, licensing etc.) was not profitable for some reason?
Not sure if you are joking but... it does not appear to be making anywhere near the amount of money that has been invested in it.
It costs a stupendous amount of money to develop the models, to train them, to rent out or just buy the hardware needed to do this, to pay for the electrical power to do this.
Now that I think of it, yeah, it makes absolute sense. It's not a stable income OpenAI is based on, but rather the endless wagons of money from hyped up sponsors. Very much unsustainable.
It isn't even close to making a profit. They are bleeding billions per year with no obvious path to breaking even, let alone profiting enough to justify their enormous valuation. It's very much a bubble and I look forward to the day it pops.
To be fair, if I had an option to effectively invest in Google circa 2004 in 2024 I would toss some spare money at it, and that's basically what OpenAI is offering at this moment. They've established themselves, shown strong leadership and established strong relationships with major companies. They're a leader in a particular product segment and while they could falter and fail, there's enough momentum that they're more likely to be acquired than to actually fail, plus they're swimming in extremely uncharted waters so there's plenty of opportunities for them to both greatly improve ongoing operational efficiency and to create new products with new markets, much like where Google was in 2004
Worse than Bitcoin miners, AI seems to have the wholethroated support of capital (rather than a single faction), who see it as the next big form of automation
AI at least provides a clear product that can be a helpful workforce multiplier, whereas Bitcoin provided an unprotected alternative to traditional markets with none of the safeguards nor legal precedents of traditional markets, so it's only led to illegal activities piled upon illegal activities
Or are you telling me that vastly the fastest growing platform in history with multiple payment gates (subscriptions, pay per token, licensing etc.) was not profitable
Are you not aware that 99 times out of 100 if you see a tech company rapidly growing it's completely unprofitable and not even attempting to be profitable yet? It's called blitzscaling and is pretty clearly what openai is attempting. Like if you see a tech company quickly growing you should be assuming it's unprofitable until proven otherwise not the opposite lol.