AI Viability Wager

AI Viability Wager — weekly tracker for probabilities and brief rationale.

Wager summary

• Believer: Joseph Conley — wins if it is NOT the case that BOTH OpenAI and Anthropic are Out of Business by June 30, 2028 11:59 PM ET (zero or one failure = Believer; Ch.11 counts as OOB for a lab)
• Skeptic: wins ONLY if BOTH hit Out of Business (Ch.7, Ch.11/equivalent restructuring, permanent cessation, receiver wind-down, or dissolution)
• No‑bet: mainly dual carve-outs / both legs voided (e.g. both acquired with continued AI ops); one-lab OOB is Believer, not no-bet

Rules note: Final amendment ~2026-09-30: Believer wins unless BOTH labs are Out of Business by the deadline (one-lab OOB → Believer). Skeptic wins only on dual OOB. Ch.11 still counts as OOB for a lab. No-bet is mainly dual carve-outs / both legs voided — not single failure.

Weekly tracker

Newest first.

Oct 19, 2026

• Believer: 86%    Skeptic: 9%    No‑bet: 5%
• Anthropic told investors Q3 revenue rose 45% to $16.8B and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis (Reuters, Oct 14); it plans to file publicly on Oct 26 for a mid-November IPO (IFR).
• OpenAI’s ~$30B raise at ~$1.4T was still in talks with no term sheet; PitchBook put fair value near $1T as losses keep growing.

Oct 12, 2026

• Believer: 84%    Skeptic: 11%    No‑bet: 5%
• OpenAI told investors 2026 revenue would be ~$50B, well below the ~$70B run-rate signaled weeks earlier (Guardian, Oct 9).
• The $30B OpenAI raise and Anthropic’s expected November IPO both remained on track.

Oct 5, 2026

• Believer: 85%    Skeptic: 10%    No‑bet: 5%
• Bloomberg: OpenAI in talks with UAE funds (incl. MGX) and BlackRock to anchor a $30B+ round at ~$1.4T pre-money; IPO pushed to 2027.
• Anthropic reported to be preparing an IPO as soon as November.

Sep 30, 2026

• Believer: 83%    Skeptic: 12%    No‑bet: 5%
• Polymarket bankruptcy markets opened Sep 17, pricing each lab’s bankruptcy odds in the mid-teens to ~17%.
• Reports on heavy 2026–2028 compute burn sharpened scrutiny of both labs’ cash needs.

Aug 1, 2026

• Believer: 93%    Skeptic: 3%    No‑bet: 4%
• A July 30 third-party tracker put OpenAI annualized revenue near $43B.
• Anthropic’s last public run-rate was still ~$47B (May); no July funding or solvency stress.

Jul 1, 2026

• Believer: 92%    Skeptic: 3%    No‑bet: 5%
• OpenAI closed a $122B round at an $852B valuation in March; Anthropic raised ~$65B at ~$965B in spring.
• Both labs made early-June confidential IPO filings; no public sign of financial distress.

Disclaimer: Rough public-info judgment only. Not betting, investment, or legal advice. Honor wager between private parties through June 30, 2028.

Machine‑readable history: history.json · history.csv