this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 32 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This is something I've been speculating for a while. The cost of running these complex systems (as OpenAI models aren't just LLMs) is subsidized so heavily that we don't really know the cost of running these things.

This is a huge risk to any business, as the price for these services has to go up significantly in the long term.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ed Zitron calculated from the publicly available numbers that OpenAI was spending $2.35 for every $1 of ChatGPT they sell

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Is that for all operations or literally just to run the paid services? Cause if that includes the free services, marketing, R&D then they have a lot of options to cut costs.

Given what AWS/etc. charge for their LLMs/APIs it feels like the entire industry is subsidizing LLM compute to stay competitive. But I could be wrong there.

[–] baldingpudenda@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Was it altman that tweeted they were near the singularity? I assumed it was a way to raise money. Felt more like "Fuck! We need more money to burn."

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 3 days ago

they were only “near AGI” before their most recent funding rounds closed, after that they were “a few thousand days” away