598
OpenAI is reportedly going all-in as a for-profit company
(mashable.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
How is this going to work while OpenAI currently burns through an absolute ocean of cash to keep improving its services? Alongside this, a good software engineer or applied scientist can make close to $1m a year. While I do think professionals should earn what their value is to an employer, OpenAI still loses a ton of money.
As someone that works in AI, I think most of us know it's full of people trying to make a quick buck while investors will stupidly throw money at it. OpenAI is ultimately the figurehead of this market though, because at least the big companies can prop their AI offerings with the money they make from shopping, cloud, ads, etc. The second OpenAI looks weak and needs money, the vultures will slice off a piece and we'll see the AI market reduce to a wimper - just enough for tech to focus on the next grift.
About the only AI company currently alive that I'm sure will survive is CivitAI. Huggingface probably, too. Both are, in the end, in the datacenter business. Huggingface has exposure to VC BS in their client base, they might be in trouble if a significant number suddenly go belly-up but if they have any sense they'll simply not overextend. And, well, they, too, can switch to cat pictures.
Yeah some of my team members use hf and it really does represent a convenience (basically a GitHub for models), but I'm sure to be clear we can't rely on them alone. I don't trust any company to exist or not be bought out and enshittified in 3 years.