OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, with Spending Hitting $34B

Post by structural » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #380

structural wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's situation is exactly the same. OpenAI is offering inference for a bunch of industries at prices that make it more competitive than hiring humans to do the same work. If the break-even price to actually provide the service wasn't actually economic compared to humans, would there be nearly as much of a market? That's the real question. OpenAI is basically betting that they can live long enough that AI systems ge…

I think you underestimate the price by a few orders of magnitude where it makes sense to pay a model instead of a human. If someone earning 200,000 a year gets replaced by paying 500 a day to Anthropic or OpenAI their employer comes out ahead.

Post by danny_codes » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:24 AM UTC

paytonjjones wrote: post #272

bruce343434 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone else will be 5% more productive. Then no one is "more" productive. So everyone has a higher output, but the same wages and hours worked. There was only a gap when usable AI first came out, some contractors could do the same quantity of work in less time and enjoy time off or do more jobs. Now the gap has closed or is closing. And using AI now is more about not being less productive than peers who do use it.

That's not how productivity works. It's not a zero-sum game. If all construction workers can build houses 5% more efficiently, that's not the same as nothing changing. Depending on supply and demand, it means 5% more houses are built, or houses are 5% cheaper, or maybe 5% bigger, or some combination. Whether or not the construction workers all get a raise or 5% get fired (or both) depends on that supply and demand, b…

Post by danny_codes » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

fearmerchant wrote: post #169

darth_avocado wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying if you cut all the cost centers a company would only have profit centers? If you ignore all the losses you’ll only have profits?

It's more like once you figure out how to make a really good lamp then producing lots of lamps will be profitable. But the lamps are currently suboptimal so we'll be in the red until that time.

Post by danny_codes » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:42 AM UTC

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #205

pluc wrote: post #117

I'm really curious about something: how far will you go to support AI? Clearly they'll need to monetize things further, would you still use [whatever AI you are paying for] if the price was doubled? Tripled? Where would you stop and would you stop using AI altogether or would you look at competitors?

It depends on how much time it saves me and how much I make per hour generally, right? If AI allows me to cut my time to do something in half on average or allows me to do 2x more it would be worth it to pay up to what my monthly income was before assuming my income scaled with my output.

Post by mewpmewp2 » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 12:14 PM UTC

bob778 wrote: post #410

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how much time it saves me and how much I make per hour generally, right? If AI allows me to cut my time to do something in half on average or allows me to do 2x more it would be worth it to pay up to what my monthly income was before assuming my income scaled with my output.

> assuming my income scaled with my output The problem is that hasn’t been the case for 50 years