Earlier quoted context omitted.
The last OpenAI valuation I read about was 157 billion. I am struggling to understand what justifies this. To me, it feels like OpenAI is at best few months ahead of competitors in some areas. But even if I am underestimating the advantage, it's few years instead of few months, why does it matter? It's not like AI companies are going to enjoy the first-mover advantage internet giants had over the competition.
It's justified if AGI is possible. If AGI is possible, then the entire human economy stops making sense as far as money goes, and 'owning' part of OpenAI gives you power. That is of course, assuming AGI is possible and exponential, and that marketshare goes to a single entity instead of a set of entities. Lots of big assumptions. Seems like we're heading towards a slow-lackluster singularity though.
I heard people on HN saying this (even without the money condition) and I fail to grasp the reasoning behind it. Suppose in a few years Altman announces a model, say o11, that is supposedly AGI, and in several benchmarks it hits over 90%. I don't believe it's possible with LLMs because of their inherent limitations but let's assume it can solve general tasks in a way similar to an average human.
Now, how come that "the entire human economy stops making sense"? In order to eat, we need farmers, we need construction workers, shops etc. As for white collar workers, you will need a whole range of people to maintain and further develop this AGI. So IMHO the opposite is true: the human economy will work exactly as before but the job market will continue to evolve withe people using AGI in a similar way that they use LLMs now but probably with greater confidence. (Or not.)