If you're confused about how the hell AI is going to make the kind of money needed to turn a profit, I'll illustrate

[AZJonnie]

I'll say first I use AI for coding at work, and I use it in places like the nursery, when I'm buying plants. "Hey Google, how will this plant species do in the Phoenix heat, 4 feet from a south-facing wall", and "what is the growth rate", and "is now a good time to plant it", those kinds of things. I think it'll probably always be free for that kind of thing, or perhaps your mobile provider pays for the one integrated in your phone and passes that cost on to you, for example. This is a lot of people's experience with AI, and so it's logical to ask, how is it going to ever make a lot of money?

And it's because the goal is much more lofty than that. Let's say you'd like to hand it blueprints for a skyscraper and say "build this for us", well then THAT will cost you a lot of money. Obviously AI cannot do the physical work itself, but think of what it might be able TO do, if not now, then someday probably not that far off:

It could figure out the skills needed from the workers, what specialists you'd need. Place ads for workers. Review the resumes. Research the applicants (and probably get a shit ton of info about them) who apply. Make the job offers. Shop needed contractors. Negotiate with them. Send them contracts, review how they reply, provided detailed options to a small group of human decision makers.

Calculate all the materials required for the project. Shop for the best deals for the products. Hell, it could send out emails requesting better deals for you and read the emails that come back and negotiate some more. Leverage one supplier against another in negotiations. Figure out when the products need to arrive based on which stage of the process the project should be at at what time, and place the orders at the proper times.

Work up the schedules for the workers and contractors during the project. Communicate those schedule to the workers. While monitoring upcoming weather forecasts so it can tell people not to show up 3 days from now cause there's a blizzard coming.

Shop around for the payroll company then coordinate the paychecks. Review the accounts payable and receivable. Bug people to pay you, review the requests for you to pay them.

For permits, figure out which are needed, then apply for any that are. Pay the permit fees. Retrieve and store digital copies of the permits.

Create a website for your project if you wanted one. Book the cloud space to host the website on AWS, after shopping the options (AWS, Azure, etc). If it's an office or commercial space, put out ads about renting the space. Run your marketing campaign. Calculate what rates will need to be charged to make a profit, keeping an eye on published competitors rates in the area.

Hell, it could design the freaking BUILDING ITSELF if you give it a detailed-enough prompt, and give YOU the blueprints.

Now, think about how many jobs that is, normally. How many people you have to pay to get all that done. And AI never calls in sick, never takes a day off, it never makes a mathematical mistake (though of course it would make other mistakes, but people do as well).

Then after your building is built, the original customer keeps it working doing any other electronic shit needed to keep the place running, manage tenets, maintenance, the landscapers, everything damn near. The customer ends up locked in, dependent on it.

THAT is the kind of AI they want to build and that is where the real money will be. So, obvs, that is shit-ton of processing power, and these companies aren't giving THAT service away. You'll pay MILLIONS because you'll be replacing DOZENS of people.

And once the AI is trained and built (and continues to self-train), then what?

OpenAI or whoever just has to pay for the juice, and to keep the electronics up to date. That will not cost them the same amount of millions. At a certain point, it becomes VERY profitable. Esp. if they build their own power infrastructure, solar and wind farms and battery backups and such.

And this is just one example, you can apply this same model to all kinds of business enterprises and endeavors. This whole thing is not about Chatbots, that is just the friendly, forward-facing bit. The proof of concept, if you will.

Will it ever be able to do all that, and do it reliably enough? I'm not sure, that is the trillion dollar question. But that's the kind of thing they're hoping to have as a product.