ChatGPT was released in 2022, so OP's point stands perfectly well.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/15/openai-is-reportedly-devel...
The play now seems to be less AGI, more "too big to fail" / use all the capital to morph into a FAANG bigtech.
My bet is that they'll develop a suite of office tools that leverage their model, chat/communication tools, a browser, and perhaps a device.
They're going to try to turn into Google (with maybe a bit of Apple and Meta) before Google turns into them.
Near-term, I don't see late stage investors as recouping their investment. But in time, this may work out well for them. There's a tremendous amount of inefficiency and lack of competition amongst the big tech players. They've been so large that nobody else could effectively challenge them. Now there's a "startup" with enough capital to start eating into big tech's more profitable business lines.
If this starts looking differently and the pace picks up, I won't be giving analysis on OpenAI anymore. I'll start packing for the hills.
But to OpenAI's credit, I also don't see how minting another FAANG isn't an incredible achievement. Like - wow - this tech giant was willed into existence. Can't we marvel at that a little bit without worrying about LLMs doing our taxes?
I'm bullish on the models, and my first quiet 5 minutes after the announcement was spent thinking how many of the people I walked past days would be different if the computer Just Did It(tm) (I don't think their day would be different, so I'm not bullish on ASI-even-if-achieved, I guess?)
I think binary analysis that flips between "this is a propped up failure, like when banks get bailouts" and "I'd run away from civilization" isn't really worth much.
GPT 4o and Sora are incredibly viral and organic and it's taking over TikTok, Instagram, and all other social media.
If you're not watching casual social media you might miss it, but it's nothing short of a phenomenon.
ChatGPT is now the most downloaded app this month. Images are the reason for that.
For UX The GPT info in the thread would be collapsed by default and both users have the discretion to click to expand the info.