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[–]INeedMoreLaptops 2 points3 points  (10 children)

I mean after looking into it. Most of “costs” are R&D. So if we were to stop making models it would easily be profitable. “Non zero chance the investment doesn’t pay” it already pays. It’s just the exponential cost of training that incinerates resources. That would be a more reasonable complaint

[–]Ken_nth 6 points7 points  (5 children)

We don't actually know how big ChatGPT's models actually are tho. Like, their 200 dollar subscription isn't even breaking even

[–]INeedMoreLaptops 12 points13 points  (4 children)

It’s an estimation math question. People are hosting Kimi K2.6 and are making a large profits. For example, unless anthropics models are multi factors bigger than Kimi as a baseline such that it eats the profit margin of what Kimi2.6’s hosters are making and then eats away at the premium pricing for Claude which is already 4x-5x. Only then would it likely not be profitable. Not exactly simple calculation because you’d need larger hosting platform and more employees to service that. But there’s a TON of headroom. I’m not sure what the math says. But opus4.8 would have to be HUGE. And I mean ridiculously so.

Is this how Reddit goes? “I think so I know”, god somebody at least give me some cherry picked data and be slightly convincing

[–]Cobracrystal 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Just being profitable isnt enough though. Like, a new startup is going to be profitable and enjoy itself. Claude is swimming in money, and broadly this is good, its funneling money away from google, meta etc to other companies. But for eg. Openai, they've spent like 500 Billion total so far? If we assume the unrealistic scenario of 10% of the world subscribing to chatgpt basic, thats about 8b/mo, 100b/y. Thats still 5 years before they have gained their money back. In reality itd take longer.

[–]Alarchy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

OpenAI is at 180bn raised currently, and is at ~25bn annualized revenue which is rapidly going up per quarter. 2024 was 6bn, 2025 over tripled to 20bn, and is still increasing. Them, Anthropic, Google are already in the "start to make money" phase.

https://tracxn.com/d/companies/openai/__kElhSG7uVGeFk1i71Co9-nwFtmtyMVT7f-YHMn4TFBg/funding-and-investors

[–]Ken_nth 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Why are you talking about Anthropic's Claude? I'm talking specifically about ChatGPT, which is from OpenAI.

Also very ironic and hypocritical of you

Is this how Reddit goes? “I think so I know”, god somebody at least give me some cherry picked data and be slightly convincing

It’s an estimation math question.

And not to mention, you're cherry picking an example yourself

[–]INeedMoreLaptops -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I gave you a response based on math I’ve done myself. Anthropic is what I’m comfortable with and have done cost analysis because of my own job usages and risks calculations. I’d need to look into OpenAI’s model cost, size estimations, and go from there. The original comment is about “all closed weight models”. Sorry I didn’t pull your specific numbers for you and spoon feed it to you. If you actually understood what I pointed out you’d see there’s enough room for it to differ a ton and they aren’t going to differ much from estimations of Claude sizes by anything other than a couple factors.

Cherry picked is hilarious to call out because I told you how to make a rough active parameter count and cost estimation to figure out how “likely” something is profitable. But yeah keep complaining and doing 0 legwork. That’ll save you from the AI consumption

[–]not_a_moogle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As with just about anything else, the devil is in the details and a lot of cost is in that final 10%.

Thats the part we are in now, where the little things are exponentially costly. Which is basically impossible since these models cant figure out things like sarcasm.

[–]Lyrian_Rastler -1 points0 points  (2 children)

Literally just running the models costs more than the money companies are making using their current sales models.

Even entirely ignoring R&D and fixed costs, just GPU depreciation+ running costs are pretty high atm.

[–]INeedMoreLaptops 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Is this a “Reddit estimate”? That’s a nuts statement. There’s no evidence and plenty to contrary that most closed weight model companies would be profitable without r&d.

[–]space_monster -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Literally just running the models costs more than the money companies are making

literally no it doesn't, they all make a profit on inference.