'At some point you've got to make money': Goldman's top AI skeptic warns the clock is running out ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs

https://lemmy.today/post/54311965

'At some point you've got to make money': Goldman's top AI skeptic warns the clock is running out ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs - Lemmy Today

Lemmy

I’m not much of an AI skeptic compared to most on Lemmy. I think the technology is incredibly useful and probably beneficial to society if we can remove the control of the ruling class.

That said I truly don’t understand how the AI business model is supposed to work. I’m sure there is some market for businesses, governments, etc., basically people who have too much money who may want to pay for the latest and greatest models.

But I don’t really see the average consumer doing this when slightly less good versions will almost certainly be available for free. And the above customers will not be able to support the level of investment that’s going on right now.

The business model should be that with economies of scale they could provide compute much cheaper than average consumer can buy to run locally. So yeah, that means they gotta be able to support these $20/mo plans indefinitely.

If they jack up the prices i can just buy a 128gb ryzen ai machine for the price of $200/mo claude for a year

I’m not an expert but my understanding is most of the computation is in the training. The actual queries are not too difficult to manage. So I think that’s what makes it more difficult to monetize because you’re trying to position yourself as a digital gatekeeper for work that has already been done. Yes, some industries have survived in this position but it limits the amount of profit you can make because there are always ways to copy someone else’s homework.