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Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

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Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#411

> Additionally, a structure with the ownership of OpenAI would be put in place. Microsoft would entail a 49 percent stake while other investors would take over the other 49 percent. The remaining 2 percent will reportedly go to OpenAI’s non-profit parent firm. When OpenAI was funded as a non-profit in 2015, it raised $1 billion from investors that included YC Research. [1] Sam Altman was also the former president of…

One thing that really bothers me is how much of a contradiction "OpenAI" is. There's virtually nothing open about it.

It's "open" relative to all of the research being IP of Google and FB.

They pulled researchers into their own org and out of FAANG which I think was part of the motivation. They pitched it as open to the public, but I'm not sure that's what it was.

I think opinions also changed because of goal alignment and AGI safety ideas becoming better understood.

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#412
post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he should start with standardizing his charger

Industry is too early IMO. There’s a huge need to innovate on rapid recharge. I’d worry standardizing would negatively impact this.

Seeing as right now there are two connectors, Tesla's and literally everybody else, I'm not sure where innovation is necessary.

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#413

> Additionally, a structure with the ownership of OpenAI would be put in place. Microsoft would entail a 49 percent stake while other investors would take over the other 49 percent. The remaining 2 percent will reportedly go to OpenAI’s non-profit parent firm. When OpenAI was funded as a non-profit in 2015, it raised $1 billion from investors that included YC Research. [1] Sam Altman was also the former president of…

It's probably reasonably straightforward for well-connected VC people to raise $1bn from philanthropic rich people, which might have seemed like enough money at the time to make progress on the problem of AGI. But I suspect they've realized that the actual amount of capital required to cover headcount (some of the most expensive employees in the world) and compute (some of the largest specific+expensive compute requirements out there) that would be necessary to advance the state of the art far enough to create a real product that might be cash-flow-neutral is probably on the order of $10-30bn. And that's a tremendous amount of money for a philanthropist or set of philanthropists to sink into, far more than even the most well-connected people can marshal in donations from American billionaires. And the government likely wouldn't funnel that kind of money into an organization that has only a few hundred people. So the only remaining route (or at least the easiest for a bunch of established capitalists) is to raise money as a for-profit venture.

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#414

Question to AI/ML folks : Is there no comparable open source model? Is the future going to be controlled by big corporations who own the models themselves? If models are so computationally intensive to produce does it mean than the more computational power a company has the better its models will be?

It’s not the model that’s the edge here but the scale of compute. A PC user is not going to be able to run such a behemoth which has billions of input neurons. This is not an ideal ML model

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#415

> Additionally, a structure with the ownership of OpenAI would be put in place. Microsoft would entail a 49 percent stake while other investors would take over the other 49 percent. The remaining 2 percent will reportedly go to OpenAI’s non-profit parent firm. When OpenAI was funded as a non-profit in 2015, it raised $1 billion from investors that included YC Research. [1] Sam Altman was also the former president of…

One thing that really bothers me is how much of a contradiction "OpenAI" is. There's virtually nothing open about it.

[dead]

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industry is too early IMO. There’s a huge need to innovate on rapid recharge. I’d worry standardizing would negatively impact this.

Seeing as right now there are two connectors, Tesla's and literally everybody else, I'm not sure where innovation is necessary.

That we still don’t have rapid recharge close to gas?

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#417
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To conceal what?

The absolute first line: > OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity. is clearly not their first priority, and maybe never was. > to avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power. > primary fiduciary duty is to humanity They're l…

Yeah well most startups begin with good intentions until someone throws $10B at them. As they say, everyone has a price.

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used it? Start working on anything. Next time you go to Google how to do something, or want to name something, or want to convert formats, or a dozen other things, just ask GPT. Say “give me 5 cool names for this”. Any task. “Show me a garden plot given plants from this time of year.” “Tell me about different types of LLCs and the tradeoffs.” “This code isn’t working what’s wrong.” You’ll quickly be able to…

How about this softball question I just tried? Q: "What was the most energy efficient electric vehicle available in 2022?" A: I'm sorry, but I don't have any information about specific electric vehicles that will be available in 2022. In general, the most energy efficient electric vehicles are those that have a large battery pack and a powerful electric motor, which allows them to travel long distances on a single ch…

You’re not asking it to rearchitect your whole company and software stack. I think you’d be surprised by how much value is there, instead of writing HN essays about what we all know isn’t there. Same goes for crypto.

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#419
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FANGO, then?

Replace the F from Facebook with the M from Meta and now we can have "MANGO" which is an acronym that would absolutely catch.

The problem is the N.

Netflix does matter to you if you are working anywhere near software in the Silicon Valley, but is just not in the same tier as the rest of them. The opposite for the missing Microsoft.

That's why the rest of the world uses GAFAM and not FAANG.

Re: Microsoft eyes $10B bet on ChatGPT

#420
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already invested 1 billion in 2019, I think. So maybe they already own part of OpenAI and $10 billion brings their share up to 49% at a $29 billion valuation. Maybe I am wrong about the details here but these numbers do not mean that Microsoft is undervaluing them.

75% of profit until investment is recouped sounds like a pretty bad deal, though. Not sure it makes sense to hobble a startup's ability to reinvest in themselves at this early of a stage.

I think this is talking about profit, not revenue. You can reinvest [edit: excessive] revenue to not have profit.
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