Gong Zhe is a senior sci-tech editor at CGTN Digital. His opinions are his own and in no way represent the views of CGTN.When OpenAI recently urged governments to restrict Chinese-developed AI models like DeepSeek-R1, it wrapped its plea in familiar
I don’t know what their plan is. The entire point of OpenAI at this point seems be their potential future offerings but at this point I can’t think of how it would materialise. Their recent roadmap and 4.5 release has been a disappointment. Any innovation of theirs is replicated within a couple of months.
The most telling aspect of the Deepseek fiasco was that it made it clear that these people are putting zero effort into being efficient. It makes it look like they are colluding with Nvidia where they claim that they need more compute which Nvidia is the only provider for so they just inflate each others’ valuations.
Assuming that they get the regulatory protection they want, what then? OpenAI is a VC money blast furnace and there is no chance of that changing anytime soon. I feel the whole value proposition of OpenAI to investors was that it would let companies fire human workers and replace them with AI at lower costs and risks but their tech is too shit for that and that also is not going to change anytime soon. The marriage between the Trump regime and silicon valley rent seekers is borne out of pure short term opportunism.
I wish that OpenAI and their ilk would die already so I could begin to make sense of the world.
I think you have to view companies like OpenAI or Tesla more as a meme coin than tech companies. They’re not really about producing anything tangible, but they ride on investor confidence, and as long as there’s a belief that their stock as valuable they keep their value.
Yea the vision is very unclear to me, at least what they’ve announced publicly. I’ve seen people say the goal is achieving AGI but I’m not sure what that even means.
From internal docs leak it seems that the company is totally capitalist brained and it doesn’t have a clear definition of AGI either.
According to leaked documents obtained by The Information, the two companies came to agree in 2023 that AGI will be achieved once OpenAI has developed an AI system that can generate at least $100 billion in profits.
Again this is also unclear. How is it going to generate profits?
If it’s supposed to replace Google search, one avenue I can see is trying to incorporate ads into the LLM answers, which just degrades their product, but I suppose if they hit a mass market then they can create a sort of walled Garden that keeps people on it.
Another way is that it will totally replace workers. I don’t think this is possible and is AI idealism.
The other way is you make this a product that increases productivity. In that case you can replace workers because it makes the average worker more productive and then a company can do more with less.
But I’m just speculating, I think any of these can be totally wrong.
I wish that OpenAI and their ilk would die already so I could begin to make sense of the world
Ignoring the incoming climate catastrophe, I think the only way for AI to die is for something else new and shiny to come in that VC’s then stop throwing their money into AI buzzword bullshit startup and into that new industry. I think all these VC’s think the same way and want the next “internet”. It’s also why I think so much money was thrown into crypto as even though it was bs, it had a next big thing kinda vibe.
I’m hoping it doesn’t even get to that point and we can have some kinda revolution in the west because, fuck, we’re all dying so that these assholes can maintain their profits.
I don’t know what their plan is. The entire point of OpenAI at this point seems be their potential future offerings but at this point I can’t think of how it would materialise. Their recent roadmap and 4.5 release has been a disappointment. Any innovation of theirs is replicated within a couple of months.
The most telling aspect of the Deepseek fiasco was that it made it clear that these people are putting zero effort into being efficient. It makes it look like they are colluding with Nvidia where they claim that they need more compute which Nvidia is the only provider for so they just inflate each others’ valuations.
Assuming that they get the regulatory protection they want, what then? OpenAI is a VC money blast furnace and there is no chance of that changing anytime soon. I feel the whole value proposition of OpenAI to investors was that it would let companies fire human workers and replace them with AI at lower costs and risks but their tech is too shit for that and that also is not going to change anytime soon. The marriage between the Trump regime and silicon valley rent seekers is borne out of pure short term opportunism.
I wish that OpenAI and their ilk would die already so I could begin to make sense of the world.
I think you have to view companies like OpenAI or Tesla more as a meme coin than tech companies. They’re not really about producing anything tangible, but they ride on investor confidence, and as long as there’s a belief that their stock as valuable they keep their value.
Yea the vision is very unclear to me, at least what they’ve announced publicly. I’ve seen people say the goal is achieving AGI but I’m not sure what that even means.
From internal docs leak it seems that the company is totally capitalist brained and it doesn’t have a clear definition of AGI either.
https://gizmodo.com/leaked-documents-show-openai-has-a-very-clear-definition-of-agi-2000543339
Again this is also unclear. How is it going to generate profits?
If it’s supposed to replace Google search, one avenue I can see is trying to incorporate ads into the LLM answers, which just degrades their product, but I suppose if they hit a mass market then they can create a sort of walled Garden that keeps people on it.
Another way is that it will totally replace workers. I don’t think this is possible and is AI idealism.
The other way is you make this a product that increases productivity. In that case you can replace workers because it makes the average worker more productive and then a company can do more with less.
But I’m just speculating, I think any of these can be totally wrong.
Ignoring the incoming climate catastrophe, I think the only way for AI to die is for something else new and shiny to come in that VC’s then stop throwing their money into AI buzzword bullshit startup and into that new industry. I think all these VC’s think the same way and want the next “internet”. It’s also why I think so much money was thrown into crypto as even though it was bs, it had a next big thing kinda vibe.
I’m hoping it doesn’t even get to that point and we can have some kinda revolution in the west because, fuck, we’re all dying so that these assholes can maintain their profits.