Top economist warns that the AI math doesn’t make sense: ‘Profits are currently being funded by investors rather than earned from customers’
Slok broke the AI stack into four layers: models/applications, cloud/compute, energy/grid, silicon/equipment. Silicon and equipment (chipmakers) show 41% profit margins. Models and applications (OpenAI, Anthropic and similar) show -59% operating margins. Upstream profits are real but they are paid for by capital raised by the losing layer, not by end-user cash flow. Goldman projects AI … Read more