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OpenAI could reportedly run out of cash by mid-2027 — analyst paints grim picture after examining the company's finances (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://toast.ooo/post/12317935

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[–] 48 points 3 months ago (15 children)

use their cheapest plan, burn their tokens, burn the hole in their budget. could backfire though as then "clever analysts" will claim that demand is up and eager bankers will shell out more cash

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  • [–] 44 points 3 months ago (10 children)

    Or educate the people around you that "AI" is not the magical fairy dust machine that can do anything imaginable. Might be better than giving them any money at all.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    The people actively using AI are not an issue of lacking education on how bad it is. Just a quick example is of an upper management asshole who absolutely "loves" AI. Reality is they shit out slop but their direct reports undo the damage to protect their jobs. I know of more than a few developers in a tough spot where they are credit card slaves so work invisible overtime to compensate. They did this to themselves and are trapped in AI hell.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago* (7 children)

    Interesting perspective. Software development works different where I come from, the dev part is still very much in control of the developers themselves. However the management lives in delusionville and the expectations are pretty much insane compared to the reality of the actual turnout. My comment above was more about educating the general public... AI results can look pretty compelling unless you decide to have a closer look, and a lot of non-dev people are falling for it. Either because they are dumb and gullible, lack analytic thinking or because they have no real contact with AI and are just exposed to the hype through the media.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Adjacent comment: Using the electrician analogy, AI is like one of those really cool gadgets you see on Temu that don't actually do half of what they claim and will probably burn the building down. Another analogy is AI are like Roomba's: they kinda work, take forever to finish, clog up easily, and are guaranteed to miss a lot of stuff.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I was a software consultant with "architect"* experience for the last 10 years of my career or whatever you want to call it. 50~80% of my job was basically saying the same thing their in house developers were saying. Maybe the other half was pushing tech stack upgrades (CVS -> SVN -> Git/Perforce ), (CGI to basically anything else), etc etc. My least favorite role was being a hatchet man, eg one of the Bobs from office space.

    Professionally I used a shit ton of analogies and metaphors. Absolute most effective was comparing new feature development to an electrician adding a new light or receptacle. You may find you need to upgrade the service panel (database or other services), it can take time to pull new lines and doing so can interfere with existing equipment. Finally you can only pull so many new cables through an existing building before you need to do necessary cleanups and rearrangements (eg refactoring). Failing to do so may lead to brown outs (crashes) or the entire building catching on fire (eg Microsoft Dumpster Fire 11). Last bit is you can help explain the complexity of a feature as top floor, mid level, or basement (eg "soonish").

    * Architect title/role was something I would try my best to bury. The companies that needed an Architect only figure that out when they discover MS Access DB isn't going to work /s but only a little bit. Also what the fuck is an "Architect", its not like any of our titles have any national standards.

    This video is kind of triggering my deep seated hatred of MBA's but if you ever want to explain to the normies what your job is like, "The Expert" https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg is perfect.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I can relate. I've been doing consultant work and I always tried to avoid being pushed into the "architect" role. My background for over 25 years was software development and we had a lot of success with agile methods (doing it right is hard but viable and it produces quality software) My experience is that a good dev team does not need an "architect" to tells them what's best. But all of this is now gone anyway, or at least taking an extended break. At the moment no one is investing in development teams, and the prospect of being able to fire all the developers because AI can do their job now is making CEOs giddy everywhere. Not going to happen (and this should be obvious for anyone who can judge the quality of code or the effectiveness of processes in terms of reliability, quality, cost, performance etc.) but that doesn't stop them from trying.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    I framed the "AI" craze as parallel to self checkout kiosks. They were sold as the future and a way of getting rid of those pesky human workers. Reality is they're an open wound on the company. Unfortunately it will cost more money to get rid of them so they're still there.

    That's the difference with AI currently. Cancel your subscription, toggle it to off in your IDE, and its gone. I believe this is why they're trying to push "AI" everywhere, hoping it will stick somewhere.

    Otherwise I liked a well manged agile development process. Heck of a lot less stressful than water fall.

    edit: fax spalling erwor

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago

    That would definitely backfire. The best approach against any corporation is not to use them and let their name be forgotten, therefore, the shares losing value and becoming less and less attractive to investors

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    The most expensive plan gets you more tokens per unit of currency actually (10x cost for 20x usage), but it's pretty expensive and there's not actual guarantee that they're still losing money on your subscription in 2026 and as you pointed out, being able to show demand and MRR will get them more loans.

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