this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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But the profit absolutely can materialize because it is useful.
Right now the problem is hardware / data center costs, but those can come down at a per user level.
They just need to make it useful enough within those cost constants which is 100% without a doubt possible, it's just a matter of can they do it before they run out of money.
Edit: for example, nvidia giving OpenAI hardware for ownership helps bring down their costs, which gives them a longer runway to find that sweet spot.
It is unlikely to turn a profit because the returns need to be greater than the investment for there to be any profit. The trends show that very few want to pay for this service. I mean, why would you pay for something that's the equivalent of asking someone online or in person for free or very little cost by comparison?
Furthermore, it's a corporation that steals from you and doesn't want to be held accountable for anything. For example, the chat bot suicides and the fact that their business model would fall over if they actually had to pay for the data that they use to train their models.
The whole thing is extremely inefficient and makes us more dumb via atrophy. Why would anyone want to third party their thinking process? It's like thinking everyone wants mobility scooters.
These companies have BILLIONS in revenue and millions of customers, and you're saying very few want to pay...
The money is there, they just need to optimize the LLMs to run more efficiently (this is continually progressing), and the hardware side work on reducing hardware costs as well (including electricity usage / heat generation). If OpenAI can build a datacenter that re-uses all it's heat for example to heat a hospital nearby, that's another step towards reaching profitability.
I'm not saying this is an easy problem to solve, but you're making it sound no one wants it and they can never do it.
It's not easy to solve because its not possible to solve. ML has been around since before computers, it's not magically going to get efficient. The models are already optimized.
Revenue isn't profit. These companies are the biggest cost sinks ever.
Heating a single building is a joke marketing tactic compared to the actual energy impact these LLM energy sinks have.
I'm an automation engineer, LLMs suck at anything cutting edge. Its basically a mainstream knowledge reproducer with no original outputs. Meaning it can't do anything that isnt already done.
Why on earth do you think things can't be optimized on the LLM level?
There are constant improvements being made there, they are not in any way shape or form fully optimized yet. Go follow the /r/LocalLlama sub for example and there's constant breakthroughs happening, and then a few months later you see a LLM utilizing them come out, and they're suddenly smaller, or you can run a larger model on smaller memory footprint, or you can get a larger context on the same hardware etc.
This is all so fucking early, to be so naive or ignorant to think that they're as optimized as they can get is hilarious.
I'll take a step back. These LLM models are interesting. They are being trained in interesting new ways. They are becoming more 'accurate', I guess. 'Accuracy' is very subjective and can be manipulated.
Machine learning is still the same though.
LLMs still will never expand beyond their inputs.
My point is it's not early anymore. We are near or past the peak of LLM development. The extreme amount of resources being thrown at it is the sign that we are near the end.
That sub should not be used to justify anything, just like any subreddit at any point in time.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this part.
I'll agree though that IF what you're saying is true, then they won't succeed.
Fair enough. I'd be fine being wrong.
Improved efficiency would reduce the catastrophic energy demands LLMs will have in the future. Assuming your reality comes true it would help reduce their environmental impact.
We'll see. This isn't first "it's the future" technology I've seen and I'm barely 40.
I just wanted to add one other thing on the hardware side.
These H200's are power hogs, no doubt about it. But the next generation H300 or whatever it is, will be more efficient as the node process (or whatever its called) gets smaller and the hardware is optimized and can run things faster. I could still see NVIDIA coming out and charging more $/flop or whatever the comparison would be though even if it is more efficient power wise.
But that could mean that the electricity costs to run these models starts to drop if they truly are plateaued. We might not be following moores law on this anymore (I don't actually know), but were not completely stagnant either.
So IF we are plateaued on this one aspect, then costs should start coming down in future years.
Edit: but they are locking in a lot of overhead costs at today's prices which could ruin them.