Silicon Valley has bet big on generative AI but it’s not totally clear whether that bet will pay off. A new report from the Wall Street Journal claims that, despite the endless hype around large language models and the automated platforms they power, tech companies are struggling to turn a profit when it comes to AI.
Microsoft, which has bet big on the generative AI boom with billions invested in its partner OpenAI, has been losing money on one of its major AI platforms. Github Copilot, which launched in 2021, was designed to automate some parts of a coder’s workflow and, while immensely popular with its user base, has been a huge “money loser,” the Journal reports. The problem is that users pay $10 a month subscription fee for Copilot but, according to a source interviewed by the Journal, Microsoft lost an average of $20 per user during the first few months of this year. Some users cost the company an average loss of over $80 per month, the source told the paper.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, for instance, has seen an ever declining user base while its operating costs remain incredibly high. A report from the Washington Post in June claimed that chatbots like ChatGPT lose money pretty much every time a customer uses them.
AI platforms are notoriously expensive to operate. Platforms like ChatGPT and DALL-E burn through an enormous amount of computing power and companies are struggling to figure out how to reduce that footprint. At the same time, the infrastructure to run AI systems—like powerful, high-priced AI computer chips—can be quite expensive. The cloud capacity necessary to train algorithms and run AI systems, meanwhile, is also expanding at a frightening rate. All of this energy consumption also means that AI is about as environmentally unfriendly as you can get.
Good, we as a society aren’t ready for these kind of tools. AI would further increase the divide between people. One of the reasons is that it costs too much to run it.
Everyone who can’t afford the hardware would be dependent on AI owned by corporations. And most people can’t even afford those fees. Since we build our society around (materialistic) “productivity”, I am sure AI would escalate how we treat people and whole countries who fall off the capitalism train. I hope the hype dies.
Ok, but AI isn’t going away. So if these companies stop serving open access, the ONLY people that will use them will be the people who can afford the server/processing time.
This article isn’t about usefulness of the models to normal people. It’s about profitability of the models to the corporations that serve them.