> neither versatile in its objective, nor programmable.
how programmable does it have to be for the robotic classification to stick? A cruise missile also cannot be programmed to be general - you can only program it to follow a trajectory. Just like you can only program a dishwasher to do dishes in a particular way.
Autonetics designed the inertial guidance system for the Minuteman 1 ICBM. They also sold it as a general purpose computer and distributed to Universities to learn about general purpose computers.
It took realtime input from gyroscopes and starmaps and calculated output for the thrusters.
Most robots are programmed to do one thing well. You could program a cruise missile to fly around in circles or chase the sun, just like you could program an industrial robot arm to wave like a music conductor, but they don't because that doesn't match the goals of their users.
If it would be possible to walk to get groceries (and also exercise at the same time), do people choose to drive instead because it's simply easier and faster? They then claim that the goal of exercise is simply not worth it any more given driving is faster (and easier)?
Yes, absolutely they do. That's a huge contributing factor to why the obesity rate is so high in the US. I grew up about 10 minutes walking distance from a grocery store with a big parking lot and most of us in my neighborhood drove there.
> Why do you think the public wants to self host models over using a cheaper solution hosted in the cloud?
you aren't truly in control of your compute in the cloud, and if you came to become reliant on ai, the cloud company could simply turn it off for you and you'd be shit outta luck. Unlike a regulated utility like electricity and water, where you cannot be discriminated against based on how you use said utility.
Therefore, having the ability to run local ai is a good thing. Currently, hardware constraints have kept it out of most hobbyist's hand, but i am hoping that will change soon enough (within 2-3 yrs).
The mega corps are looking to regulate ai such that individuals cannot run their private ai themselves, so that they can become more effective a monopoly. That's why it is crucial that ai is not regulated, but companies providing ai.
the exact same arguments were said about uber's business at the start.
Yet, it is now profitable.
The bet is that people realize how valuable these services are, and despite complaining, they still would pay the higher price. This realization would not happen without this initial subsidy from investors.
It isn't too different from drug dealer's first sample free...
Moviepass failed because they thought it's going to be like Gym membership - people buy and don't go, but guess what? People love going to movie theaters. On its own its not bad, see AMC Stubs, but AMC owns the theater, they sell you popcorn and soda. OpenAI an Anthropic is closer to AMC than Moviepass.
> Moviepass failed because they thought it's going to be like Gym membership - people buy and don't go, but guess what? People love going to movie theaters.
You think developers won't/don't stretch subscriptions to the absolute limit? The AI subscription model is like the gym model except a large percentage of the customers work out 24/7/365.
You're missing a piece: MoviePass was selling subscriptions while buying tickets from theaters at retail prices. That's why I mentioned AMC A-List, their subscription model works pretty well for them because they control per ticket and subscription price.
The price these companies charge per token is irrelevant to a discussion about subscriptions. You're comparing two selling prices, when what matters is the actual cost. It's like those ads saying, “Normally $20 million, but today it's only $99!” for something that costs $10 to make.
Sure, they're losing money now. But the question is whether the tokens you use through your subscription will eventually cost them less to generate than you pay for that subscription. Their per-token selling price doesn't tell you that.
Disagree with your second paragraph. Uber/lyft subsidized into deep negative margin territory around ~2015 or so. Anthropic (and OpenAI) are subsidizing but not losing money on these consumer plans.
The claim is that uber and lyft lost money on each ride but that openai and anthropic make money on inference. Just not enough to pay the cost of developing the models. The difference is that uber and lyft had to change their pricing (or payment) models to make money, where anthropic or openai could just sell enough inference (at some level of sales).
to clarify, I mean that the big model companies are charging consumers much less than equivalent API pricing but they're not actually losing money so its more of a steep at-cost discount for inference. It likely does not fully cover amortized R&D just like the other reply stated but it does still cover marginal inference cost (GPU/power/etc)
Uber and Lyft were paying drivers $X but charging users way less than $X so they were literally burning investor money to get market share.
> It likely does not fully cover amortized R&D just like the other reply stated but it does still cover marginal inference cost (GPU/power/etc)
Why does this point come up over and over again, pretending that you can truly separate training and inference costs. Yes, they are separate things but the value OpenAI and Anthropic are presenting to the world is "we're the absolute best, no one else comes close." Well, to keep that up you can't just not train for extended periods of time. You have to keep that engine going non-stop when there's free Chinese models nipping at your heels. You can be profitable on "just inference" all you want but if training expenses dwarf that, you're not going to be profitable overall, and that's the bottom line.
> does still cover marginal inference cost
Simply comparing to the larger models on OpenRouter implies that the pure hosting costs (equipment + power + minimal overhead) still exceed plan pricing if we assume all users always use their full weekly allowance.
So my conclusion is that it only works because the majority of users doen't fully utilize their allowance. Last month I used almost nothing of my Claude 20x plan (did use Codex though).
Last I checked, Uber underperformed the S&P index since its IPO. Even Softbank didn't make a great return on its investment. The growth story was definitely oversold.
Also, Uber was peak ZIRP + COVID, money was cheap and growth was easy. I think the mountain to climb is a lot steeper now.
I did let the credits scene play out completely, because it completely parodies the large staff count, with large numbers of them being in positions like directors and producers. It's such a good parody.
> I've not seen with any other emergent technology is the level of backlash against it.
i think those who had backlashes against machines and automation in the past would be similar tbh.
It's because when people feel, even if remotely, their livelihood going down the drain, they do anything and everything to fight it (even if it would be against the interest of overall progress - nobody wants to be the "sacrifice").
I mean, Luddites were hanged for murdering people. We're not quite there yet.
They were not just fighting for their livelihoods, though; the fight was at least as much about dignity and fair treatment.
And they were correct to do so: skilled workers who lost their work and ended up in industrial employment did not have better lives. It took a century to a century-and-a-half for industrial quality of life to get back to pre-industrial quality of life.
Loss of dignity is something that the AI industry is not considering as it renders entire swathes of the economy button-pushers for chatbots.
When loss of livelihood appears it will be too late and at too great a scale to fight back in the workplace; the fightback will be somewhere else.
how programmable does it have to be for the robotic classification to stick? A cruise missile also cannot be programmed to be general - you can only program it to follow a trajectory. Just like you can only program a dishwasher to do dishes in a particular way.
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