technology

Just over three years ago, OpenAI opened the floodgates with the launch of ChatGPT. The frantic industry-wide race that followed has resulted in soaring valuations for AI companies, tens of billions of dollars invested in data center infrastructure — and plenty of skepticism as well.

For one, experts have pointed out that OpenAI’s business fundamentals are inherently different from those of its competitors like Google. These legacy businesses can tap existing revenue sources to bankroll their major AI capital expenditures.

The Sam Altman-led OpenAI, however, has raised record amounts of cash and has vowed to spend well over $1 trillion before the end of the decade without the advantage of an existing business that generates ongoing revenue. (The company’s recent announcement that it’s stuffing ads into ChatGPT is likely a bid to shift that reality.)

The gap between the AI industry’s promises of a human-level AI-driven future and reality, in other words, has never been wider much like the enormous gulf between AI company valuations and their lagging revenues.

To many onlookers, that kind of hubris could end in disaster. As former Fidelity manager George Noble, who has spent decades in asset management, notes in a lengthy tweet, the company may already be “FALLING APART IN REAL TIME.”

“I’ve watched companies implode for decades,” he wrote. “This one has all the warning signs.”