OpenAI walks back comments about government support for its AI spending

Source: MarketWatch

How OpenAI plans to pay for spending plans that dwarf its revenue is a big question these days. But after suggesting Wednesday that perhaps the government could get involved, the company is now walking back those comments.

CFO Sarah Friar said at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event on Wednesday that the ChatGPT creator was “looking for an ecosystem of banks, private equity, maybe even governmental” partners, as she mused about “the ways governments can come to bear.”

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Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-will-openai-cover-its-heavy-spending-it-now-suggests-maybe-the-government-could-help-e1ca64f5

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She wasn't misunderstood yesterday - what they wanted was clearly understood by the tech and financial experts who heard about this first. But the backlash was apparently much worse than they'd expected. So after yesterday's stories about their plan to shift financial responsibility for their insane recklessness to the American people, the new stories this morning are about the backpedaling.

As the Economic Times pointed out - https://m.economictimes.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/openai-seeks-government-backing-to-boost-ai-investments/articleshow/125123217.cms - the proposal was "unusual for a Silicon Valley tech giant" and meant OpenAI would be able to borrow even more money more easily because "the government would absorb losses if the company defaulted."

This is what AI expert Gary Marcus wrote yesterday about what OpenAI wants - and what he'd predicted early this year would happen - as the AI bubble looks more and more dangerous:

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/if-you-thought-the-2008-bank-bailout