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The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

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Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#51

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

gtirloni wrote: post #41
bluefirebrand wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we really want to replace humans? Unfortunately for a substantial number of people the answer to this question seems to be a resounding "yes"

With those people being business owners, investors, etc, 100% of the time. The other 99% would like automation to make their lives easier. Who wouldn't want the promised tech utopia? Unfortunately, that's not happening so it's understandable that people are more concerned than joyous about AI.

>With those people being business owners, investors, etc, 100% of the time.

How can one run a business by replacing humans, if no humans are left with enough income to buy your products?

I suspect that the desire to "replace humans" runs far deeper than just shortsighted business wants.

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#52

Post by usefulcat »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #7

Yes, GPT-5 is more of an iteration than anything else, and to me this says more about OpenAI than the rest of the industry. However, I think the majority of the improvements over the past year have been difficult to quantify using benchmarks. Users often talk about how certain models "feel" smarter on their particular tasks, and we won't know if the same is true for GPT-5 until people use it for a while. The "GPT-5 w…

> Why would you be proud of this?

Isn't it obvious? They have a huge vested interest in getting people to believe that it's very useful, capable, etc.

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#53

Post by riku_iki »

sillyfluke wrote: post #49
riku_iki wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber had limited underpowered competition, so they could win starvation game. OpenAI competes with google, who can drop 50B/y into AI hype for very long time.

the 1.5 mil bonus to tech staff announcement prior to chatgpt 5 release makes even more sense now. They knew it would be difficult to manage public expectations and wanted to counter the short-term (in the best case) drop in morale in the company.

I think that 1.5m bonus is likely stocks with 500B valuation. There are other rumors they want outsiders to be allowed to buy stocks with 500B valuation.

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#54

Post by infecto »

emccue wrote: post #50
infecto wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it old news that the full for-profit is not happening and they renegotiated the terms that would make the current proposed PBC a solution as it meets the economic terms? I have no idea if OpenAI succeeds or not but I find arguments like yours difficult to understand. Most businesses are not using these systems to draw a map. Maybe the release of 5 is lackluster but it does not change that there is some value in…

The entire US stock market is propped up by big tech companies spending massively on Data Centers and GPUs for AI. OpenAI is valued higher than Netflix. A company that can pull in single digit billions in revenue for hundreds of billions in expenses just doesn't make sense. > Most businesses are not using these systems t̶o̶ ̶d̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶p̶.̶ FTFY And no - while it might be obvious from the outside in that it pr…

FTFY? Cute, but you’re arguing against a strawman. My point wasn’t that companies are using GPT to draw maps, it’s that dismissing the tech based on one goofy output ignores the far more common, revenue-generating use cases already in production.

As for “single-digit billions in revenue vs. hundreds of billions in expenses,” that’s just bad math. You’re conflating the total AI capex from hyperscalers with OpenAI’s own P&L. Yes, training is capital-intensive, but the marginal cost to serve (especially at scale) is much lower, and plenty of deployments are already profitable on an operating basis when you strip out R&D burn.

The funding structure question is fair, the for-profit conversion path matters but pretending the whole business is propped up solely by infinite investor charity is just wrong.

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#55

Post by Analemma_ »

xnx wrote: post #30
anon191928 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

burning money worked for Uber. As long as they can IPO or get cheap debt from governm friends any valuation can work. Uber lost double digit billions as an app with no edge or anythin. It always made no sense beyond 1 billion

> burning money worked for Uber. TBD. Some people did well while Uber gave money away, but Uber is not net profitable over its lifetime.

Uber raised something like $50 billion in debt and equity before it went public, but after 15 years of losing money, it has finally started making profits… just in time for Waymo to arrive and eat its lunch. Of course, Uber could themselves get into the self-driving game, but their entire profit story to investors relies on pushing costs away from them onto drivers; it vanishes entirely if they have to maintain their own fleet.

Uber is profitable on a cash basis, but if you’re a public investor, you got fleeced by the early-stage venture money and debtholders. I don’t think it will ever pay back what it raised.

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#56

Post by bluefirebrand »

mrits wrote: post #9
davydm wrote: post #3

Issues like this are why I don't use ai agents for code. I don't want to sift through the bullshit confidently spewed out by the model. It doesn't understand anything. It can't possibly "understand my codebase". It can only predict tokens, and it can only be useful if the pattern has been seen before. Even then, it will product buggy replicas, which I've pointed out during demos. I disabled the ai helpers in my IDEs…

There is a threshold that every developer needs for them to make it be worth their time. For me that has already been met. Your comment makes me think that you don't believe it will start producing higher quality code than you anytime soon. I think most of us are in the camp that even though we don't need AI right now we believe we will not be valuable in the near future without being highly proficient with the tooli…

> even though we don't need AI right now we believe we will not be valuable in the near future

This reads to me like you don't think you're valuable right now either

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#57

Post by 9rx »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #7

Yes, GPT-5 is more of an iteration than anything else, and to me this says more about OpenAI than the rest of the industry. However, I think the majority of the improvements over the past year have been difficult to quantify using benchmarks. Users often talk about how certain models "feel" smarter on their particular tasks, and we won't know if the same is true for GPT-5 until people use it for a while. The "GPT-5 w…

> Do we really want to replace humans?

AGI doesn't really replace humans, it merely provides a unified model that can be hooked up to carry out any number of tasks. Fundamentally no different than how we already write bespoke firmware for every appliance, except instead of needing specialized code for each case, you can simply use the same program for everything. To that extent, software developers have always been trying to replace humans — so the answer from the HN crowd is a resounding yes!

> We should want better and more reliable tools

Which is what AGI enables. AGI isn't a sentience that rises up to destroy us. There may be some future where technology does that, but that's not what we call AGI. As before, it is no different than us writing bespoke software for every situation, except instead of needing a different program for every situation, you have one program that can be installed into a number of situations. Need a controller for your washing machine? Install the AGI software. Need a controller for your car's engine? Install the same AGI software!

It will replace the need to write a lot of new software, but I suppose that is ultimately okay. Technology replaced the loom operator, and while it may have been devastating to those who lost their loom operator jobs, is anyone today upset about not having to operate a loom? We found even more interesting work to do.

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#58

Post by emccue »

infecto wrote: post #54
emccue wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire US stock market is propped up by big tech companies spending massively on Data Centers and GPUs for AI. OpenAI is valued higher than Netflix. A company that can pull in single digit billions in revenue for hundreds of billions in expenses just doesn't make sense. > Most businesses are not using these systems t̶o̶ ̶d̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶p̶.̶ FTFY And no - while it might be obvious from the outside in that it pr…

FTFY? Cute, but you’re arguing against a strawman. My point wasn’t that companies are using GPT to draw maps, it’s that dismissing the tech based on one goofy output ignores the far more common, revenue-generating use cases already in production. As for “single-digit billions in revenue vs. hundreds of billions in expenses,” that’s just bad math. You’re conflating the total AI capex from hyperscalers with OpenAI’s ow…

Microsoft AI Revenue In 2025: $13 billion, with $10 billion from OpenAI, sold "at a heavily discounted rate that essentially only covers costs for operating the servers."

Capital Expenditures in 2025: $80 billion

---

Amazon AI Revenue In 2025: $5 billion

Capital Expenditures in 2025: $105 billion

---

Google AI Revenue: $7.7 Billion (at most)

Capital Expenditures in 2025: $75 Billion

---

Meta AI Revenue: $2bn to $3bn

Capital Expenditures In 2025: $72 Billion

---

The math is bad, but its not "bad math."

(Numbers from here: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-haters-gui/)

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#59

Post by bluefirebrand »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #51
gtirloni wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With those people being business owners, investors, etc, 100% of the time. The other 99% would like automation to make their lives easier. Who wouldn't want the promised tech utopia? Unfortunately, that's not happening so it's understandable that people are more concerned than joyous about AI.

>With those people being business owners, investors, etc, 100% of the time. How can one run a business by replacing humans, if no humans are left with enough income to buy your products? I suspect that the desire to "replace humans" runs far deeper than just shortsighted business wants.

> How can one run a business by replacing humans, if no humans are left with enough income to buy your products?

If you control all of the wealth and resources and you have fully automated all of the production of everything you could ever want, then why would you need other humans to buy anything?

Re: The GPT-5 Launch Was Concerning

#60

Post by xnx »

Analemma_ wrote: post #55
xnx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> burning money worked for Uber. TBD. Some people did well while Uber gave money away, but Uber is not net profitable over its lifetime.

Uber raised something like $50 billion in debt and equity before it went public, but after 15 years of losing money, it has finally started making profits… just in time for Waymo to arrive and eat its lunch. Of course, Uber could themselves get into the self-driving game, but their entire profit story to investors relies on pushing costs away from them onto drivers; it vanishes entirely if they have to maintain their…

Agree.

> Uber could themselves get into the self-driving game

They tried. Made a little progress, killed someone, and gave up (rightfully so).

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