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OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

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641–650 of 777 posts

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, personally, use chatGPT for search more than I do Google these days. It, more often than not, gives me more exact results based on what I'm looking for and it produces links I can visit to get more information. I think this is where their competitive advantage lies if they can figure out how to monetize that.

We don’t need anecdotes. We have data. Google has been announcing quarter after quarter of record revenues and profits and hasn’t seen any decrease in search traffic. Apple also hinted at the fact that it also didn’t see any decreased revenues from the Google Search deal. AI answers is good enough and there is a long history of companies who couldn’t monetize traffic via ads. The canonical example is Yahoo. Yahoo was…

> Google has been announcing quarter after quarter of record revenues and profits and hasn’t seen any decrease in search traffic.

this kind of things may take some time to spread across population

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#642
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regular google search AI doesn’t do thinky thinky mode. For most buying decisions these days I ask ChatGPT to go off and search and think for a while given certain constraints, while taking particular note of Reddit and YouTube comments, and come back with some recommendations. I’ve been delighted with the results.

I chuckled at "thinky thinky" mode. If some ai company used this branding it would win a lot of hearts and minds methinks

It could backfire badly.

"Some messages are tough to write, let's thinky-think it through together."

"Golly, your codey-code could use some help. Ask me what I thinky-think!"

"I'm here to help you thinky-think while you worky-work!"

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well unfortunately for you, it has a precisely defined and well-understood meaning for all those not covering their eyes and ears in denial. Quoting Merriam-Webster: > Digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. Chosen by the editors as word of the year, by the way.

"Slop" in English means "liquid junk, rubbish, tripe". No need to call for Merriam Webster's help. The point is that AI can produce slop (as people do, too), but it's just silly to imply that everything it can produce is slop. That's just lazy, sloppy thinking.

Sure. I'm fully aware that AI can be useful, especially once we move past LLMs.

However, I do think that the majority (or mainstream) use of GenAI today is indeed not very useful or even harmful. And I do think that something like railroads are more useful by orders of magnitude.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#644
post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Not GP and haven’t participated in this thread. I’m clueless on what the point in your earlier comment is. Can you elaborate, please?

I can try. Which part is confusing to you, the "nvidia will charge as much as it can" part or the "utilities won't" part?

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this perspective. What should be taxed? Amazon, as an example, has servers in country X. Country X taxes the transaction or the income from the server company. Amazon pays delivery drivers in country X to deliver goods, and the driver is taxed through various means (vehicle, fuel, payroll, etc). What is Amazon doing in country X that should be taxed?

> What is Amazon doing in country X that should be taxed? its profits within that country (income minus actual expenses) in practice expenses are fakely inflated to transfer tax payments top jurisdiction with near-zero taxes

How can profit be calculated if a significant component of expenses is intellectual property and brand awareness which was paid for somewhere else?

Amazon can add up the costs to install and operate a datacenter or warehouse in country X, but most of the demand for services from that datacenter or warehouse will be due to expenses incurred in country Y.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well unfortunately for you, it has a precisely defined and well-understood meaning for all those not covering their eyes and ears in denial. Quoting Merriam-Webster: > Digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. Chosen by the editors as word of the year, by the way.

"Slop" in English means "liquid junk, rubbish, tripe". No need to call for Merriam Webster's help. The point is that AI can produce slop (as people do, too), but it's just silly to imply that everything it can produce is slop. That's just lazy, sloppy thinking.

> but it's just silly to imply that everything it can produce is slop

that is why people use slop qualifier, rather than not using qualifier

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#647
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utilities and insurance companies are two examples of business regulated to not charge the maximum, for public policy reasons.

we suggesting that nvidia/google/.. be regulated for like utilities?

Just expanding on the above sentence “utilities don’t do that”. Which is why depending on Nvidia isn’t like depending on electricity.

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Slop" in English means "liquid junk, rubbish, tripe". No need to call for Merriam Webster's help. The point is that AI can produce slop (as people do, too), but it's just silly to imply that everything it can produce is slop. That's just lazy, sloppy thinking.

Sure. I'm fully aware that AI can be useful, especially once we move past LLMs. However, I do think that the majority (or mainstream) use of GenAI today is indeed not very useful or even harmful. And I do think that something like railroads are more useful by orders of magnitude.

> I do think that the majority (or mainstream) use of GenAI today is indeed not very useful or even harmful.

What are you basing this opinion on?

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OpenAI's losses might actually be attractive to certain investors from a tax perspective. OpenAI is anyways seeking Govt Bailout for "National Security" reasons. Wow, I earlier scoffed at "Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses", but this appears to now be Standard Operating Procedure in the U.S. https://www.citizen.org/news/openais-request-for-massive-gov... So the U.S. Taxpayer will effectively pay for it. And not j…

There's already a lot that the US taxpayer is on the hook for that's a lot less valuable than a best on the next big thing in software, productivity, and warfare. It shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed someone that doesn't want to work, study, or pass a drug test, and it absolutely shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed another country's citizens half a world away.

As intrinsically social animals, we have general obligations toward other people that precede our consent. How these play out in practice will be determined by the limitations and conditions of the situation. But in general, such obligations radiate outward based on proximity of relation.

Our first obligations are toward our immediate families. As the human race is essentially a large extended family, the obligations dissipate the further out we go. We do have a general obligation to help those in need, but this obligation is prioritized. In classical texts, this is called the ordo amoris or "order of love" (in the older, more technically accurate terminology, order of charity, where "charity" - from caritas - means willing the good of the other).

Now, to address your comment specifically...

> There's already a lot that the US taxpayer is on the hook for that's a lot less valuable than a best on the next big thing in software, productivity, and warfare.

For example? Whatever the benefits of LLMs, I find this relative exuberance unreasonable.

> It shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed someone that doesn't want to work,

In someone able-bodied and of sound mind refuses to work, then we don't have an obligation to support someone like that. This is true. In fact, it would be uncharitable to enable their laziness, because it harms the character and virtue of that person. Of course, in practice, if someone you have determined is able to work is found starving and in danger of death, for example, then it is unlikely they are merely lazy. Would a man of sound mind allow himself to starve?

The manner in which we deal with such cases is a prudential matter, not a matter or principle. We need to determine how best to satisfy the principle in the given circumstances, and there is room for debate here.

> it absolutely shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed another country's citizens half a world away.

If there is a humanitarian crisis somewhere in the world, for example, then there is a general obligation of the entire world to help those affected. How that happens, how that is coordinate, is a matter of prudence and implementation detail, as it were. Naturally, several factors enter the equation (proximity, wealth, etc).

Re: OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

#650
post #76

Not sure why they put so much investment into videoSlop and imageSlop. Anthropic seems to be more focused at least.

Because as with the internet 99% of the usage won’t be for education, work, personal development, what have you. It will be for effing kitten videos and memes.

It is a matter who will actually pay for compute. Is it people who care about work or entertainment?

Even if developers are 1:1000 of your users, I'm going to guess that ratio shifts a lot when you look at subscribers.

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