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Cancel ChatGPT AI boycott surges after OpenAI pentagon military deal

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Re: Cancel ChatGPT AI boycott surges after OpenAI pentagon military deal

#11
post #4

I'm one of the people that canceled my OpenAI Plus subscription after Sam Altman demonstrated his lack of integrity last week. I like to think I'm doing something, but honestly I am not sure that it would make a difference if literally every consumer canceled their subscription at this point. They now have an "in" with the slush fund that we call "US military contracting", which is probably worth more than what they…

I'm not saying they're going to blow up next month, but OpenAI is substantially overleveraged on being a "wave of the future" company where all the smartest people want to work and all the best other companies want to do business with. I don't think a world where they become Palantir 2 can support their current capital expenditures.

Re: Cancel ChatGPT AI boycott surges after OpenAI pentagon military deal

#14
post #4

I'm one of the people that canceled my OpenAI Plus subscription after Sam Altman demonstrated his lack of integrity last week. I like to think I'm doing something, but honestly I am not sure that it would make a difference if literally every consumer canceled their subscription at this point. They now have an "in" with the slush fund that we call "US military contracting", which is probably worth more than what they…

I'm not saying they're going to blow up next month, but OpenAI is substantially overleveraged on being a "wave of the future" company where all the smartest people want to work and all the best other companies want to do business with. I don't think a world where they become Palantir 2 can support their current capital expenditures.

Maybe they could try and rebrand as a "lifestyle brand" like Palantir has been. https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-wants-to-be-a-lifestyle...

Re: Cancel ChatGPT AI boycott surges after OpenAI pentagon military deal

#16
post #4

I'm one of the people that canceled my OpenAI Plus subscription after Sam Altman demonstrated his lack of integrity last week. I like to think I'm doing something, but honestly I am not sure that it would make a difference if literally every consumer canceled their subscription at this point. They now have an "in" with the slush fund that we call "US military contracting", which is probably worth more than what they…

My impression is that lots of companies that deal exclusively with the US govt are doing fine, but it doesn't seem like they'd draw the best talent or become the biggest companies. If that's OpenAI's fate, I'm okay with it. I canceled my sub a while back and figured hey - worst case, I saved some money (since I subscribe to multiple AI services). Regardless, casting your one vote with your money is important.

I guess what frustrates me is how much people seem to have amnesia with anything involving tech. In a week or two this will fade from the collective consciousness, and OpenAI will be unaffected and they'll release new features and people will start subscribing again.

I mean, look at all the reputational damage that has happened with Microsoft and Google throughout the years; it's so common that it's basically ignored now.

Re: Cancel ChatGPT AI boycott surges after OpenAI pentagon military deal

#17
post #12

Unless ~800k users cancel it is still a net positive for them and that is with the current relatively small contract they have. The reality is that money is in B2B.

According to QuitGPT[0], as of now, 2.5 million people have done so, which they base on "website signatures, share counts on social media, and credible app usage data". I don't know how accurate this is, but seems a bit of a high number.

[0] https://quitgpt.org/

Re: Cancel ChatGPT AI boycott surges after OpenAI pentagon military deal

#19
I regret ever having signed up. But not only because of this. Also because they just don't clearly say that they don't analyze, read or even use my prompts - it just freaks me out that some derived or "anonymized" version of my prompt is saved or even used for training other models.

Re: Cancel ChatGPT AI boycott surges after OpenAI pentagon military deal

#20
Hegseth declared quite unofficially (on X) that any company that does business with the US military must cease all business interactions with Anthropic. If that actually becomes an official thing, that will be worth billions lost to Anthropic, whereas a ChatGPT boycott by a few million people (who probably weren't using it that much anyway) is mostly a drop in the bucket.
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