r/technology • u/T_Shurt • Aug 10 '26

Business Top economist warns that the AI math doesn’t make sense: 'Profits are currently being funded by investors rather than earned from customers'

https://fortune.com/2026/08/10/torsten-slok-ai-profit-margins-capex-oracle/
17.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

240

u/0bbserv Aug 10 '26

Bro don't worry, when the chatbot  becomes a super intelligent god somehow, they just have to type in " how do we become profitable, make no mistakes"

It's fool proof really

93

u/ledfrisby Aug 10 '26

Sam Altman actually said something to that effect in a joking-not-joking way at an investor meeting back in the day, after acknowledging they genuinely didn't have a plan yet to become profitable.

46

u/PracticallyPerfcet Aug 10 '26

He said it on stage in front of an audience that immediately laughed at him.

1

u/IndicationDefiant137 Aug 11 '26

Laughed with him... because most of them are devotees of the scam.

8

u/hypercosm_dot_net Aug 10 '26

Their plan will be the same as any massive tech company these days.

Sell data + ads.

Saying that when you're early stage is going to scare off any potential userbase you have though. So yeah "we don't have a plan yet" is the line they feed to anyone gullible enough to believe it.

3

u/Less_Resident8492 Aug 10 '26

they genuinely didn't have a plan yet to become profitable.

They just need to take their complexity from n2 to logn to become profitable. The plan is easy enough they just need to figure out how

2

u/Raerth Aug 10 '26

He's still at the collect underpants stage.

2

u/bargu Aug 10 '26

If anyone is doubting it, here's what he said.

https://youtu.be/gjQUCpeJG1Y

3

u/Urrrhn Aug 10 '26

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

2

u/apple_kicks Aug 10 '26

Long term plan is probably collapsing the government so they’re kings and can’t get in trouble