“No! AI training costs are not going away. They are an inherent part of running these companies, and are not capex. They are operating expenses.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
AI training costs are not going away; they are an inherent part of running these companies and are operating expenses, not capex.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, The Subprime AI Crisis Is Here, paragraph 124.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-the-subprime-ai-crisis-is-here-f16c33-a1
We recorded 43 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-03-31. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- AI training costs are not going away
- an inherent part of running these companies
- are not capex
- They are operating expenses
Our interpretation
- These companies refers principally to OpenAI and Anthropic.
- Training means model-development activity, distinguished from purchasing reusable servers or datacenters.
- The ordinary present-tense reading is that continued model development is a recurring business requirement whose costs are expensed.
- Use calendar 2025, the latest completed financial year before the post.
- Not going away supplies no independently testable future deadline; this assessment does not interpret it as a forecast that training must continue forever.
- No accounting framework is stated, so the contract's accounting basis remains unknown.
Counts as supported if: The named labs' accounting policies and expenses show recurring model training treated as operating expense, with continuing development integral to their businesses.
Counts as contradicted if: Comparable records show material model-training costs themselves being capitalized, or show that continued training was not an ongoing requirement of the businesses described.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
Anthropic's filing provides strong evidence for the narrower point that its model-development costs were generally expensed. It was public by the evaluation date and describes the relevant historical period. The complete claim extends to multiple labs and continuing business necessity. Those extensions are not established, and the speaker supplies no accounting basis for a definitive money assessment.
Limitations
- The filing became public after the post; it can establish historical treatment, not what was publicly documented when Zitron wrote.
- Expensing model development does not imply that training hardware cannot be capitalized.
- The assessment does not resolve an indefinite prediction about future training.
Evidence (1 item)
Context only: Anthropic,
generally expensed as incurred
Why it matters here: Anthropic's audited accounting policy aligns with the expense-classification point for that company. Its qualified wording does not establish a universal rule for every lab or every development expenditure.
- Publisher
- Anthropic
- Kind of source
- Regulatory filing, audited
- Measures
- Anthropic, Accounting treatment of model-development costs, gaap, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Comparable accounting policies and incurred training-expense disclosures for OpenAI and Anthropic, with a specified accounting framework and a clear distinction between training activity and reusable infrastructure.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, The Subprime AI Crisis Is Here
No! AI training costs are not going away. They are an inherent part of running these companies, and are not capex. They are operating expenses.
- Where
- paragraph 124
- Published
- 2026-03-31
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-the-subprime-ai-crisis-is-here-f16c33-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment wyea-the-subprime-ai-crisis-is-here-f16c33-a1.