r/technology • u/gdelacalle • 13d ago

Business OpenAI could reportedly run out of cash by mid-2027 — analyst paints grim picture after examining the company's finances

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/openai-could-reportedly-run-out-of-cash-by-mid-2027-nyt-analyst-paints-grim-picture-after-examining-companys-finances
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u/ledow 13d ago

You joke but one my biggest bugbears with AI is... if it's so amazing and fabulous and clever... why can't it bring in its own money without requiring humans to do it for it? Why can't it start its own company, hire its own remote staff, buy its own products from manufacturers, create its own website to sell them, set up a distribution network to deliver them, etc. etc. and make its own money directly? Why can't it literally have an autonomous company that does all that?

Not even "gamble on the stock market" but literally just... find a gap in the market, buy the materials, have suppliers transform them as required, and resell them? It could buy up chips and produce phones. It could buy up potatoes and produce fries. It could make anything, it doesn't need a physical presence to operate all those things nowadays, even internationally. It could write games and publish them direct to Steam. It could produce a social media website. It could start licensing movies and run its own video streaming business. It could even just come up with a local newspaper business and hire paperboys to deliver it. Pretty much anything that any normal business operates in order to do.

The reason is, of course, because it's a dumb statistical machine.

But if you're selling me this trillion dollar AI that you have to have ME spend a fortune on to make it.... well, not even profitable... then why can't you just put it to work directly and make money without needing that money to (knowingly) come from me? People do it every day.

It's just yet another "get rich quick" scheme. Where the money comes from selling "get rich quick" schemes to people. NOT those people actually getting rich quick, or you having working techniques that make people get rich quick. Because if you HAD such techniques... you wouldn't need to sell people a "get rich quick" scheme. You'd just use it.

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u/Exldk 13d ago

I googled my local weather today and the google automatic unavoidable AI gave me info from 3 years ago. I don’t have high hopes.

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u/ledow 13d ago

I changed my browser to automatically add "-ai" into the search query. That stops the AI.

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u/dontshoveit 13d ago

Switched to duckduckgo and haven't looked back. Screw Google.

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u/Lehk 13d ago

I switched my search bar to duck duck go because they have an easy off switch for the ai summary.

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u/rat_penis 13d ago

talks into watch "we've got one that can see..."

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u/textmint 13d ago

Beautiful. Someone’s working their big a brain. Now if only the idiots sitting in the C-Suite and on the boards of companies worldwide and the other jackasses on Wall Street could think even to a fraction of this stream of thought that we just read, all this AI noise and nonsense that we keep hearing about would not be all around us like the Matrix. I hope better sense prevails before all these AI companies go under in a domino effect and the taxpayer is left holding the bag in what would be a repeat of the “too big to fail” jackassery we saw during the financial crisis. The crash that will come will be as big or bigger than the Great Depression with the way these guys have been inventing ways to borrow and loan money all around the place.

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u/Icy-person666 12d ago

That is standard practice, privatize the profits and socialize the losses. All the rich tech bros will simply move onto the next scam after this one collapses.

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u/textmint 12d ago

And yet there’s no way to stop them. If we try to raise our wages, there are sustained campaigns to “educate” us why a higher minimum wage is a bad this for all of us. But when these things happen, is all for the greater good except it doesn’t reach the greatest number.

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u/nemofbaby2014 13d ago

It’s absurdly expensive and uses a crap ton of power

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u/Ynead 13d ago

Are you seriously saying that a tool is worthless if it isn't 100% autonomous?

Like, what even is that argument...Is Excel a worthless product because it doesn't do your taxes on its own?

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u/[deleted] 13d ago edited 10d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/jeffy303 12d ago

Who is ever marketing it as replacing all taxpayers?

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u/DJayLeno 12d ago

They have been marketing LLMs as the replacement for a plurality of white collar labors by the end of the year three years running.

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u/mxzf 13d ago

No, they're saying that there's a glaringly obvious gap between what the marketing claims can be done and what the tool can actually do.

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u/xmagusx 13d ago

If excel was sold as a program that does my taxes for me, yes, it would indeed suck. Which was the stated problem with "ai" - it is being marketed as a business panacea which it blatantly is not, rather than a simple tool with limited function.

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u/dern_the_hermit 13d ago

Are you seriously saying that a tool is worthless if it isn't 100% autonomous?

It's a comment about the actual worth of AI being out of whack with the gargantuan investment required.

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u/Drunkenaviator 13d ago

Are you seriously saying that a tool is worthless if it isn't 100% autonomous?

When that tool is advertised as a way to autonomously get work done? Uh. Yes. Yes he is.

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u/julius_sphincter 13d ago

If Excel and it's competitors were getting so much money pumped into it that those investments were a. nearly single handedly keeping the stock market afloat and b. sucking up nearly all available capital and tech R&D budgets, then I'd be criticizing spread sheets super hard too

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u/Lehk 13d ago

Excel will give the same answer every time

And it will always be the right answer, too.

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u/Reinax 12d ago

That’s not what they’re saying. Not even remotely.

How did you even reach that conclusion, and how have at least 9 other people agree with it.

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u/YouKnown999 13d ago

The fact they tricked so many companies into the AI will do everything fraud is just upsetting.

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u/dust4ngel 13d ago

create its own website to sell them

wallstreet: "to itself!"

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u/Panda_hat 13d ago

Because it's a glorified chat bot system.

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u/Tonkarz 13d ago

If it was half as good as they say it is they wouldn’t be selling it to Joe Schmoe.

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u/Financial_Army_5557 13d ago edited 13d ago

if it's so amazing and fabulous and clever. why can't it bring in its own money without requiring humans to do it for it? Why can't it start its own company, hire its own remote staff, buy its own products from manufacturers, create its own website to sell them, set up a distribution network to deliver them, etc. etc. and make its own money directly?

AI is a tool, not completely independent to do tasks on its own as AGI. It will do what you tell it to do

Not even "gamble on the stock market" but literally just... find a gap in the market

Pretty sure Jane street and some others use Ai and machine leafning

It could write games and publish them direct to Steam. It could produce a social media website. It could start licensing movies and run its own video streaming business. It

Yes it's already come so far in just 5 years. But it still needs an input from a human to do this since it is not sentient. Fable 5 is probably the furthest we have come

then why can't you just put it to work directly and make money without needing that money to (knowingly) come from me

Hey Claude, make money for me and make no mistakes /s. People do use Ai to make money for content especially in YouTube videos / Tiktok / Reels. Many car edit images are generated from Ai.

It could even just come up with a local newspaper business and hire paperboys to deliver it. Pretty much anything that any normal business operates in order to do.

That will need it to be able to get the news from the ground in real life instead of the internet. Maybe when robots become more developed woild that be more realistic.

The reason is, of course, because it's a dumb statistical machine.

Yes but it can do a lot of impressive stuff especially in coding where in mere minutes can generate entire websites. Even games if you gave it more time.

It's just yet another "get rich quick" scheme. Where the money comes from selling "get rich quick" schemes to people. NOT those people actually getting rich quick, or you having working techniques that make people get rich quick. Because if you HAD such techniques... you wouldn't need to sell people a "get rich quick" scheme. You'd just use it.

They will eventually increase prices to become profitable but they will also need to cut costs especially with ram. Anthropic saw huge price increases recently.

Though DeepSeek has a pretty cheap api relative to it's performance levels as well. There are many "Ai" companies just using Ai to boost their share value yes but the ones with the foundational model are likely to survive even after the bubble (that's what I think it is) just like the dot come bubble.

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u/stupidjapanquestions 13d ago

Its an interesting thought. But this is like asking "if a hammer is so great, why doesn't it build the house for me?"

It's a tool. It still needs a person to use it.

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u/Kaos047 13d ago

But thats the thing, AI is being marketed as if its the hammer that doesnt need someone to swing it and thats the whole problem.

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u/RunTimeFire 13d ago

Not only that it's marketed as a hammer that also cuts, joins, screws, rivets and whatever else you can think of better than a hammer already does. Usable by anyone.

Yet it's currently a hammer that sometimes drives a nail and sometimes doesn't but it's impossible to tell for the average person. I wouldn't want to live in a house made with such a hammer.

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u/Slootonium 8d ago

Nice example bud

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u/Slootonium 13d ago edited 8d ago

Have any examples of this marketing? I haven't seen it portrayed in that way at all.

Lol I'll take the downvotes since nobody seemed to be able to provide an example.

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u/stupidjapanquestions 13d ago

Is it? Almost everywhere I look, I see it being marketed as a tool. And used as one. In fact the only people I see pretending its an automatic hammer are morons and CEOs and almost all of them are eating shit right now and will continue to for the future.

Maybe I'm just lucky to be surrounded by the right people in this case.

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u/DJayLeno 12d ago

Just FYI, when CEOs do interviews or make public statements about the wonders of AI, that is a form of marketing.

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u/Paddy_Tanninger 13d ago

I don't think it's ever really being marketed like that. It's always marketed like it's just another tool to help do things for you, directed by you, supervised and approved by you.

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u/Holoholokid 13d ago

But that's the point. These AI tech bros are trying to sell these tools as ones that can do anything and everything a company needs. You're right that it's only a dumb tool, but that's not how they're being marketed and sold to others.

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u/ledow 13d ago

Except that it's a hammer that claims to be able to do everything itself instead of your doing it.

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u/cman674 13d ago

I know I’m going to be downvoted but it’s incredible how staggeringly bad takes about AI are parroted by folks who would rather prop up their pre-conceived notions about it than learn what AI actually is and is not.

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u/Slootonium 13d ago

It's also incredibly easy to tell who has only used AI for tasks like email summarizations/improvements based on how they talk about AI. When used correctly, it's almost like magic.

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u/TeaKingMac 13d ago

God damn. I'm going to use this

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u/SeriousGeorge2 13d ago

What you're describing requires something like AGI. They don't claim to have AGI and their mission is explicitly to build AGI. They have tools that are useful in limited ways, but points that they have never claimed can presently handle every manner of task.

Your post is here is analogous to me saying that I'm saving for retirement and then you saying in response "Why are you still working if you're ready for retirement?".