Comment by kibwen
18 hours ago
> When average people are asked to reach for AI, they reach for ChatGPT.
No, average people are nowhere near that tech-savvy. Just because every mom in the 90s called every video game console a "Nintendo" did not mean that Sony didn't mop the floor with Nintendo in that era. This isn't brand loyalty, it's brand genericity. Other than, say, Replika-style users who have formed an emotional bond with a certain style of chatbot, no average joe on the planet gives a damn whether the LLM powering their chat is provided by OpenAI or Google or etc. They'll use whatever's in front of them and most convenient, and unlike Google, Apple, or Microsoft, OpenAI doesn't own the platform that establishes the crucial defaults that nearly no user ever changes.
Except Open AI happen to be the Sony in this case. 700M Weekly active users and the 5th most visited site on the planet, with no-one else close. I mean, it's pretty clear this is less 'Nintendo' and more 'Google'.
This isn't a rebuttal to any of the above criticisms. You appear to have completely misunderstood the existential risks that OpenAI faces here.
If Google was massively unprofitable and with no profitability path in sight, yeah, that's very much Google.
Google was unprofitable for some time yes. I don't understand the obsession with the 'no profitability path in sight'. It's nonsensical. Their reported loss numbers are really low for a service with that many users. Open AI don't have to do a lot to be profitable, ads would be enough.