cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21121074
OpenAI, a non-profit AI company that will lose anywhere from $4 billion to $5 billion this year, will at some point in the next six or so months convert into a for-profit AI company, at which point it will continue to lose money in exactly the same way. Shortly after this news broke, Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati resigned, followed by Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and VP of Research, Post Training Barret Zoph, leaving OpenAI with exactly three of its eleven cofounders remaining.
This coincides suspiciously with OpenAI’s increasingly-absurd fundraising efforts, where (as I predicted in late July) OpenAI has raised the largest venture-backed fundraise of all time $6.6 billion— at a valuation of $157 billion.
People said this in 2020 during COVID and 2008 with the housing bust.
The US can outpace the collapse because it controls an international currency that commands trade markets. That’s why we can just keep buying more widgets forever, for the next widget milling project to make fake economic activity.
The real thing that will kill the American economy is a collapse in the price of fossil fuels. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.
I have a more rigorous analysis than this but it probably needs to be its own effort post.
Obviously this alone won’t bring things down. But it is the last gasp of capitalism in its attempt to expand accumulation. Without “innovation” (ie. New openings for exploitation) the iron laws of the falling rate of profit begin to really bite