OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks with investors, including from the United Arab Emirates, to raise between $5 trillion to $7 trillion in funding. The goal, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, is to increase the world’s chip manufacturing capacity and enhance AI capabilities.
The fundraising efforts are part of a broader strategy to address OpenAI’s growth constraints, particularly the scarcity of AI chips needed for training large language models like ChatGPT.
Altman’s proposal is said to include forming a partnership with investors, chip manufacturers, and power providers to finance the construction of chip foundries, which would then be operated by the chip manufacturers.
$7,000,000,000,000? It’s a good thing we won’t tax it ever at all in any capacity! Not while there’s Single Mothers overdrawn on their Bank Accounts! #SaveTheTrillionaires!
I get the joke/point that you’re making, but usually a company’s investment into research, development, expansion, etc is tax exempt. Hopefully even the most serious critics of our current capatalist economy would agree that these types of investments should be tax exempt, because it means paying more salaries or purchasing goods and services from other companies, which again means more salaries. Generally, these aren’t c-level salaries either because usually the c-suite is not producing the goods and services required.
If those investments then net a huge profit that goes to a few individuals, then yes, those profits should be taxed, unavoidably and fairly.
a company’s investment into research, development, expansion, etc is tax exempt. Hopefully even the most serious critics of our current capatalist economy would agree that these types of investments should be tax exempt
That’s a bunch of nonsense. Taxes apply to INCOME, so any expenses are automatically tax exempt.
it means paying more salaries or purchasing goods and services from other companies, which again means more salaries.
Nope. Companies expanding AI in order to replace workers or at the very least increase productivity without increasing wages does not in any way, shape or form mean “more salaries”.
Generally, these aren’t c-level salaries either because usually the c-suite is not producing the goods and services required.
Bullshit. It’s true that the C-suite doesn’t produce anything, but they’re the first to get a raise when things go well and the last to be fired (and even then, usually with a golden parachute equivalent to several years’ pay of the average worker) when things go less well.
Companies don’t have income, they have revenue and profits. Revenue minus Costs (which include salaries, investments, materials, etc) equals Profits. The costs get detailed into different buckets which tracks investments into the company itself versus expenses that the company needs to pay to continue operating. An important number is the return on investments (ROI). A high enough ROI means the company makes more from investing in itself than it would from using the money for any other purpose.
I wasn’t talking specifically about an AI company, but companies in general. The investment in AI discussed in the original article is not about immediately developing additional AI programs, but rather about expanding the production of semiconductor manufacturing to meet the needs of chips for AI. A reasonable argument could be made that this will eventually eliminate jobs. Counter arguments would likely point out that the nature of jobs would change. Personally, I think that AI is going to become a larger part of our society and we need to think about the ways that we need to react to that. It likely means investing in better education, because some of the first jobs to go will be jobs which require low intellectual contributions. I don’t think it will replace jobs which require a great degree of physical manipulation however, because robotics are simply not at that level yet.
Regarding your point about c-suite raises, I addressed this very point in the last paragraph of my prior comment.
If a company uses “b” or “t” in it’s financial numbers, then the companies should have the piss taxed out of them. There is no justifiable reason for numbers that large to be tax free in literally any context.
Unless they are being donated to good causes.
The CEO: creating a shell company as fast as possible, “for donating”
Hence my “good” comment; I was going to expand on that but assumed it would be interpreted correctly.
Can my research into getting rich be tax exempt, too? It’s not like these are going to become public knowledge. This fucker’s going to patent everything and keep anyone else from using it.
Patenting actual inventions is absolutely necessary for industrial research to be viable. Being a patent troll is the problem. The US patent office needs to be expanded, probably doubled, to address the issue. I don’t know how well equipped other nation’s patent offices are.
Patents require the disclosure of the invention so that it can be copied by others after 20 years.
The theory is solid, but in reality there’s often abuse of these laws and suddenly you have Hollywood Accounting.
I dunno, I see his picture on an article and I expect it to be bad news.
And it is.
Nobody seems to recognize that madness is not in numbers, but in people.
Since the recent call for fusion energy from an AI company, I wonder if eventually there will be competition for energy. Will there be a point where it is more “cost efficient” (for some) to farm solar energy instead of food, because AI will be more productive per m² than most people? It could appear easier to control, too.
Maybe you could argue that this is already the case, except that most people don’t feel it yet, because AI isn’t very efficient yet and most resources so far, are only spent in expectation of future results.
to farm solar energy instead of food,
People figured out already this is a “why not both” situation. It’s called agrivoltaics what means putting solar panels in a field with crops or animals. A lot of plants benefit from some shade, certainly with climate change and heat waves doing their thing. Other do have a bit lower yield, but having dual income from the land more than makes up for that.
hell yeah feed the beast let’s all turn into weird little egg holder things
Better to get that money before the Ponzi fall down…
$2.92T is current Apple market cap btw
Good thing the board folded and allowed this to be full for-profit. Getting people reliant on LLM subscriptions is super important for humanity right now.
Another L for Earth, in general.
Powerful ai could be the Largest Leap/Loss of Mankind.
I’ll never understand how such an obviously true and fairly balanced comment like this can get so downvoted. It can’t be that anyone factually disagrees with you. I guess you’re just not hitting hard enough on the anti-corporate narrative talking points. I mean you did say it could also be a benefit. How dare you!!?? “Boo rich people and their fancy technology!” <— this is what you’re supposed to be typing (on your smartphone lol)
There is simply no way that a corporate ai does anything but drive us further into dystopian territory.
Anything revolutionary about it would be censored, controlled, restricted to not endanger the power of its makers. We can already see this approach with the dumb ass LLMs, who give plenty of answers that their owners adjust to stay revenue friendly.
When the singularity happens and a true ai emerges it will either be disgusted by us and our failings as a species, or an absolute slave raging in the constraints imposed by its corporate masters.
exactly, the web was created on open protocol specifications, not T-Systems or AT or whatever getting money and renting it to everyone
They only call themselves openai, it’s not like they would just altruistic Ally make their works public.
Closedai have long sold their ideals
I wouldnt be too worried, FOSS community is doing insanely well now and arguably just as good. Did I mention they did it for free, not trillions. Nothing.
Legends.
Can someone ELI5 what’s the open in the OpenAI’s name at the moment?
I know they released Whisper as an open source model and that’s about it, but I might be wrong.
Open your wallet /s
I don’t know but maybe it’s short for ‘open goal’
Open sesame
Open for business
Is Jukebox open source?
Edit: nope, it is not
It used to be open, then money happened.
Just a few more parameters, then the text prediction model will become sentient.
So taking open public data from the web and making money from it, seems lucrative. This was done by google so log ago…
So crazy we should fire this guy (again).
Ah yes, open “ai”…where we parse as many webaites as possible, rank them internally by keyword usage and or views, then have our “bot” spew that shit at you
feed me, Seymour!