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Lemmy, this is the fourth year in a row that “OpenAI bankrupts soon” articles are being posted:
Year Article Explicit bankruptcy claim 2023 Business Today — “OpenAI might go bankrupt by end of 2024”, August 12, 2023 OpenAI could go bankrupt by the end of 2024 because of ChatGPT’s high operating costs, mounting losses and dependence on continued Microsoft funding. 2024 ITPro — “OpenAI could go bankrupt in 12 months if it doesn’t raise some serious cash”, August 7, 2024 OpenAI could go bankrupt within twelve months unless it secured substantial additional financing. 2025 Braden Kelley — “Is OpenAI About to Go Bankrupt?”, December 4, 2025 The article explicitly asks whether OpenAI is “on the brink of bankruptcy” and argues that its spending and business model may be financially unsustainable. 2026 Windows Central — “OpenAI might torch $14 billion in 2026, hitting bankruptcy by next year”, January 20, 2026 OpenAI could burn through approximately $14 billion during 2026 and face bankruptcy by mid-2027. OpenAI isn’t going anywhere.
Because they really should be failing. These companies are leveraging against themselves and getting propped up by the government.
They will get bailed out just like 2008 to avoid a cataclysmic global financial meltdown. I won’t be surprised if other countries chip in to bail them out.
This is the year of the OpenAI bankruptcy.
And it’s the year of the Linux Desktop! What a coincidence!
To be fair, the Linux Desktop use to have virtual no market share. Now it is close to 5%. Linux used to be absolutely painful to run as a desktop environment. Now, there are some rough edges, but it works pretty well.
Faster please. I want to buy computer parts again
I will happy when this bubble bursts. OpenAI, Grok and several other companies offer nothing substantive and if they’re burning cash and disrupting economies then just die already.
offer nothing substantive
Like industrial farming, there is nothing new, but now everybody can create memes and create software. Society will change.
nothing substantive
You were saying? 🤨
At least you’re honest about about what most are using it for. But have you ever tried to talk to a real one?
Yeah they’ll just sell more data and get more money from oil barons or something. They’re not going anywhere.
Any chance of a bunch of used gpus getting sold off from this?
Unfortunately they would broadly be systems that need about 15kw, and as part of a board that won’t work as discrete parts.
So you get it, but you’ll need a couple of 60 amp circuits to dedicate to it… Also you have no viable video out
No, they’re going to use the data centers for surveillance
I hope so
Might be like the AMD BC-250 discarded from crypto. Hopefully! https://bc250.info/
I was hoping the same, but have since been told by several people that know more about it than I do that they are useless for gaming.
I wouldn’t say entirely useless. They just aren’t plug and play replacements.
I hope you’re right.
Aren’t they using low accuracy FP units that aren’t suited for gaming anyway?
Getting those GPUs would be like getting a beat up horse. It’s still a horse, just not much of a use anymore
I still has some use, it’s just that it’s not as good but still useful for people who want to save money on gaming pc builds
OpenAI isn’t running ChatGPT on RTX 5090’s, they use data centre hardware like the nVidia NVL72, which are entirely useless for anyone else. You wouldn’t even be able to boot it as it uses more power while idling than a residential home has access to, and up to 150kW at full load.
up to 150kW at full load.
That’s the last generation. They’re moving from Blackwell to Rubin chips now, and the 72-GPU Rubin servers use up to 230 kW.
The typical residential connection in the U.S. has a 24 to 48 kW electrical connection. A block of houses might not have enough power infrastructure to power just one of these server racks.
Those GPUs will be about as useful as a bitcoin miner for gaming. As in exactly not useful.
They may be really useful for running your own local LLM, as long as you don’t mind the hefty power bill and jet engine noise.
LLM coops might have a big future
A friend of mine was a big crypto miner but he was kinda crazy. He died young and I helped his remote family process his estate. They let me take his computer equipment. I got a dozen tired GPUs but my dad has been running his 4k monitor on one of those old 1080tis for about six years now and it’s still doing its thing. No one has any info on his crypto accounts, all of that is just lost for now.
“grim”
Every bubble has created something we use every day. AI isn’t going anywhere.
You use tulips every day?
You bundle and sell subprime mortgages every day?
You use the world wide web every day?
dot com bubble was about speculation over domain names. The internet was certainly not created by a bubble.
Mortgages are used everyday.
Railroad are used everyday
The interest is used everyday
Amazon is used everyday
Those are the big bubbles in recent history.
Railroads were not made or built by a bubble.
Amazon did not invent remote shopping by mail. That’s been around since 1800s. They weren’t even the first website to do that.
and loans and interests are abstract concepts that have existed for millennia so I don’t know what you’re talking about there.
Bubbles and speculation don’t create wealth, new tech or products. Like what aspect of bubbles are you trying wash here? They’re bad for everybody except for the few rent seekers at the top.
Yes the railroad was a bubble. A ton of people lost money in that investment.
Amazon was a bubble, it lost 92% value when it popped.
Bubbles don’t create wealth, i agree
The housing bubble lost people a ton of money that that investment, and people also lost their pensions when the Bible popped.
A bubble is when people start heavily investing in a product to the point it’s a losing bet because that sector doesn’t need the money, or can’t produce the returns bubble investors are looking for. So when the AI bubble pops a lot of people will lose money, but the product will be here to stay because of the investment.
My point is that when a bubble pops the product is here forever, where most people think a Bible popping is the product is a failure and will disappear.
Don’t forget the AI bubble is also a ram and SSD bubble.
That is not a bubble, it’s a shortage caused by a bubble.
Fingers crossed! Let it burn.
It could be an Auryn. It symbolizes the fucked up circular market flow between software and hardware manufacturers and how their greed is a neverending story.
Is this just a sexual Ouroboros?
It’s two of them, after they discovered 69.
These guys should adopt it as their logo. It’s gotta be satire right!? Right?
I like that the articles main image looks like a giant gold turd.
An Ouroboros made of shit
I presume it’s supposed to be a (golden) snake eating itself. Could also be a mom protecting her eggs.
Let’s accelerate the the process. What’s the AI query version of DDOS?
Yes, they could just set more limits… but itll still shave the time sooner.
I sold all my funds today. Gonna hold on to my cash until this bubble bursts.
fym grim
deleted by creator
Amazon wasn’t profitable for many years until it was. Now make your own conclusions about AI.
Apples & oranges.
The AI industry is fundamentally judged based on its symbolic similarities to bygone eras. Buying GPUs and building data centers sort of feels like Amazon Web Services, even though the $765 billion that big tech will spend in 2026 will be more than ten times Amazon’s combined capex during the period where AWS was being built. ChatGPT sort of feels like Google Search or Facebook Ads or next app store, but only because it’s a culturally-relevant piece of software, largely driven by the larger cargo cult of tech crystalizing around it.
There were a lot of companies that were unprofitable during dot com and failed.
The question would be if openai is like Amazon or webvan or Netscape or AOL or…
I would argue that openai is more overextended than amaxon was, and worse, they aren’t really seen as the leading company anyway, nor do they have a strong hook. Anthropic is broadly more well regarded, and Google has the captive audience of phones and browsers.
Despite this reporting suggests openai maybe the most insane purchasing commitments.
I don’t think it ends well for openAI, however durable AI market ends up otherwise.
I can run an open weights amazon from my house?
Until it was dominant and could abuse that power to squeeze everyone.
I’d argue this is dumping.
Not just Amazon either. A good few of the American monopolies. AI spending is the pattern repeating and it is a dark pattern for everyone.
How can we make that sooner?
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
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
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.
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.
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.
it’s one of those things that people need to ask about things they are an expert at so they can understand how valuable the results really are.
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.
An air conditioning device that needs no pipe to the outside you say? It defeats the laws of thermodynamics for only 99€? Shut up and take my money!
/s
Oh I like that but you might scare the MBA’s using techno babble like “thermodynamics” :)
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.
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.
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
educating people doesnt work very often. people do not give a shit about what’s going on inside or behind of their glowing rectangle machine.
Why burn tokens when datacenters are much more flammable
Start with the gas turbines
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.
Look to your superannuation plan. Most providers have a conservative plan that’s little or no shares. If lots of people transfer the message will be loud and clear. At that point the markets will dump AI and things will eventually normalize. I suspect this is already where the elite have their money, given the present warnings.
Nah.
The more people divest the more appealing these investments are.
So more AI losses per investor. Shares are just like card collecting it only goes up if the demand is increasing. Right now I suspect it’s reached maximum insanity and is ripe for a correction.
I’m sure the big players are betting Trump will bailout AI companies. They don’t have to worry. So they keep pumping the share prices.
That’s not true.
It can feel that way when you think as shares as numbers on a computer but they represent a share in the ownership of a country and presumably that ownership is actually worth something.
If no one wants to invest because of the vibe, then you can buy the shares for a bargain.
Maybe it’s a bit like buying a house where someone was murdered. If you don’t care about the vibe then the reduced demand means you can get a bargain.
You can argue the shares are grossly overvalued, and that may be true, but my point is that shares have an intrinsic value and if demand reduces it increases the appeal to other investors.
Get a sniper rifle and shoot their generators.
Nah. They lose money every time you use their shitty services. Sabotage would actually improve their cashflow.
Only by using a significant amount of power and water
