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Comment by alch-

12 hours ago

I don't think Anthropic is turning a profit ;)

Whether on net they turn a profit as company overall is neither here nor there.. My point is that they are selling API tokens at a profit (or if being pedantic, then at a price higher than the cost to serve them ignoring research costs). And that that price is got a healthy margin which they don't charge themselves.

Because of the ongoing training costs. They are certainly making a healthy profit margin on inference.

  • Never really a sound argument.

    It's like having new solar panels installed every week. Sure you're "profitable" on the $0.20/kWh you're selling your "free" energy at when you ignore the cost of the solar panels you're buying every week.

    • It is a sound argument in the context of trying to estimate what it costs them to generate this specific output. They have training cost eather way.

Neither did Amazon for it's first 25 years ;)

  • I think you're missing the point of the comment you responded to, lol.

    • Regardless the profit margin as a talking point seems to be bad as AI as a tech might never be reversed whether anthropic failed or succeeded. Indeed it's imperative we subsidize AI companies and tech to make them explore more solutions to scientific problems which has a downstream effect on human flourishing.

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