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Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

semianalysis.com

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Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#641

Post by mda »

zmmmmm wrote: post #493

I'm a bit sceptical of the "no moat" proposition because (a) ChatGPT 4.0 really does seem in a different league and (b) it's clearly very hard to run. I haven't seen anything from the explosion of open source / community efforts that comes close for general applications. The take in the post rings of the classic trademark Google arrogance where they assume that if somebody else can do it they can do it better if they…

Just wait a few months. You are underestimating thousands of researches and engineers only working on this with enormous compute budgets in several companies.

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#642

Post by IceHegel »

uptownfunk wrote: post #95

OpenAI is further along than most of us are aware. The ability to connect these models to the web, to pipe up API access to different services and equip LLMs to be the new interface to these services and to the worlds information is the real game changer. Google cannot out innovate them because they are a big Corp rife with googly politics and challenges of overhead that come with organizational scale. I would be cur…

The current CEO, who a friend at google calls “Captain Zonk”, is dispositionaly not the person to make that kind of change.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a leadership change this year.

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#644

Post by nologic01 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #622

Investors are obsessed with moats, but people have to realize that the entire world runs on business that have no moats. There are no moats to being a plumber, a baker, a restaurant... The moat concept is predominant because the idea that everything must make billions have infected the debate about businesses. It's all about being a unicorn, a giant, a monopoly, making every body at the top billionaires, and it's lik…

> Investors are obsessed with moats

You can't blame them: gratuitous moats (like those provided by winner-takes-all dynamics) are not common in a functioning (competitive) economy so they get to be revered.

It feels unlikely that the recent period of big tech can keep the same benefits going forward. It was basically a political moat: counting on the ongoing lack of antitrust and consumer protection regulation. Even if the political dysfunction that allows that continues (quite likely), the wheels of the universe are turning.

The "leaked" report focuses on open source - a mode of producing software that is bound to become a major disruptor. We tend to discount open source because of its humble beginnings, long incubation, many false dawns and difficult business models. But if you objectively take a look at what is possible today with open source software, its quite breathtaking. I would not discount some tectonic shifts in adoption. The long running joke is "the year of the linux desktop", but keep adding open source AI and other related functionality and at some point the value proposition of open source computing (both for individuals and enterprises) will be crushingly large to ignore.

Don't forget too, that other force of human nature: geopolitics (e.g., think TikTok and friends). The current "moats" were established during an earlier, more innocent era. Now digitization is a top priority / concern for many countries. The idea that somebody can build a long-lived AI moat given the stakes is strange to say the least.

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#645

Post by irthomasthomas »

ineedasername wrote: post #384
reissbaker wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT-4 is so much better for complex tasks that I wouldn't use anything else. Trying to get 3.5 to do anything complicated is like pulling teeth, and using something worse than 3.5... Oof. TBH this feels like cope from Google; Bard is embarrassingly bad and they expected to be able to compete with OpenAI. In my experience, despite their graph in the article that puts them ahead of Vicuna-13B, they're actually behind..…

Yes, I'd readily pay for GPT-4 access, though not the limited 25 requests per 3 hours version. I ponied up $20 for a month of usage to check it out, and it performs head & shoulders above 3.5 in its ability to comprehensively address more complex prompts and provide output that is more nuanced than ChatGPT. I'll also point out that paid api access to 3.5 (davinci-03) is frequently better than ChatGPT's use of 3.5. Yo…

I have access. If you want to collaborate, or just test a few prompt ideas, you can email me @gmail

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#646

Post by aws_ls »

tikkun wrote: post #81

The part of the post that resonates for me is that working with the open source community may allow a model to improve faster. And, whichever model improves faster, will win - if it can continue that pace of improvement. The author talks about Koala but notes that ChatGPT is better. GPT-4 is then significantly better than GPT-3.5. If you've used all the models and can afford to spend money, you'd be insane to not use…

> Linux won in servers and supercomputing, but not in end user computing

Android is based on Linux.

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#647

Post by hyperthesis »

safety1st wrote: post #591
dahwolf wrote: post #389

The current paradigm is that AI is a destination. A product you go to and interact with. That's not at all how the masses are going to interact with AI in the near future. It's going to be seamlessly integrated into every-day software. In Office/Google docs, at the operating system level (Android), in your graphics editor (Adobe), on major web platforms: search, image search, Youtube, the like. Since Google and other…

There are no guarantees about who will or won't own the future, just the observation that disruptive technology makes everyone's fate more volatile. Big tech companies like Google have a lot of in-built advantages, but they're notoriously bad at executing on pivots which fundamentally alter or commoditize their core business. If that wasn't true we'd all be using Microsoft phones (or heck, IBM PCs AND phones). In Goo…

Christensen's disruptive vs sustaining innovations is more descriptive than predictive. But if it's the same customers, solving the same problem, in the same way (from their point of view), then it's probably "sustaining" and incumbents win.

Different customers, problems, ways - and all bets are off. Worse, incumbents are dependent on their customers, having optimized the company around them. Even if they know the opportunity and could grasp it, if it means losing customers they simply can't do it.

Larry is thinking people will still search... right?

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#648

Post by moberemk »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #622

Investors are obsessed with moats, but people have to realize that the entire world runs on business that have no moats. There are no moats to being a plumber, a baker, a restaurant... The moat concept is predominant because the idea that everything must make billions have infected the debate about businesses. It's all about being a unicorn, a giant, a monopoly, making every body at the top billionaires, and it's lik…

> There are no moats to being a plumber, a baker, a restaurant...

This line is interesting to me, because actually I think there _is_ a major moat there: locality. I don't disagree with the rest of your comment, but for those examples specifically a lot of the value of specific instances of those business comes from their being in your neighborhood. If I live in Toronto, I'm not going to fly a plumber from Manhattan to fix my pipes; if I want a loaf of sourdough, I'm not going to get it from San Francisco, I'm going to get it from the bakery around the corner; I might travel out of town for a particularly unique and amazing restaurant, but not every week, I've got solid enough options within a ten minute drive. Software is different because that physical accessibility hurdle doesn't exist.

Rest of this is spot-on though

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#649

Post by jasfi »

dahwolf wrote: post #389

The current paradigm is that AI is a destination. A product you go to and interact with. That's not at all how the masses are going to interact with AI in the near future. It's going to be seamlessly integrated into every-day software. In Office/Google docs, at the operating system level (Android), in your graphics editor (Adobe), on major web platforms: search, image search, Youtube, the like. Since Google and other…

Yes, AI is like social in that regard. You can add social features to any app, and the same applies to AI. But there are also social-centric sites/apps, and it will be the same for AI.

Re: Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

#650

Post by goatlover »

spyckie2 wrote: post #589
homeless_engi wrote: post #376

I don't understand. ChatGPT cost an estimated 10s of millions ot train. ChatGPT 4.0 has much better performance than the next best model. Isn't that a moat?

Think of it as a time series. It cost 10s of millions to train but in 6 months gpt4 open source equivalents will cost 100$ to train. The best model is one that you can build on top of in a way that’s it’s not a black box (SD).

Where are the gpt4 open source equivalents going to come from?
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