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Anthropic raises $13B Series F

anthropic.com

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Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#491

Post by mountainriver »

worldsayshi wrote: post #97
llamasushi wrote: post #22

The compute moat is getting absolutely insane. We're basically at the point where you need a small country's GDP just to stay in the game for one more generation of models. What gets me is that this isn't even a software moat anymore - it's literally just whoever can get their hands on enough GPUs and power infrastructure. TSMC and the power companies are the real kingmakers here. You can have all the talent in the w…

And we're still sort of on the fence if it's even that useful? Like sure it saves me a bit of time here and there but will scaling up really solve the reliability issues that is the real bottleneck.

Off software codegen alone it is beyond useful

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#492

Post by lz400 »

llamasushi wrote: post #22

The compute moat is getting absolutely insane. We're basically at the point where you need a small country's GDP just to stay in the game for one more generation of models. What gets me is that this isn't even a software moat anymore - it's literally just whoever can get their hands on enough GPUs and power infrastructure. TSMC and the power companies are the real kingmakers here. You can have all the talent in the w…

That’s probably what the companies spending the money think, that they’re building a huge moat. There’s an alternative view. If there’s a bubble and all these companies are spending these huge sums on something that ends up not returning that much on that investment, and the models plateau and eventually smaller, cheaper, self-runnable open source versions get 90% of the way there, what’s going to happen to that moat? And the companies that over spent so much?

This article is a good example of the bear case https://www.honest-broker.com/p/is-the-bubble-bursting

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#493

Post by xpe »

slashdave wrote: post #461
fancyfredbot wrote: post #386

So many negative comments here! The fact that one of the top players in a new market segment with significant growth potential can raise $13B at a 20x revenue valuation is not the bubble indicator you think it is. It's at least possible that the investment pays off. These investors almost certainly aren't insane or stupid. We may still be in a bubble, but before you declare money doesn't mean anything any more and st…

> can raise $13B at a 20x revenue valuation is not the bubble indicator you think it is. What a minute. Isn't this the very definition of a bubble?

Do you think some arbitrary multiple defines a bubble?

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#494

Post by Daz1 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #334
simianwords wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very pessimistic take. Where else do you think the innovation would come from? Take cloud for example - where did the innovation come from? It was from the top. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that this implies monetization is going to be awful. How do you know models are expensive to run? They have gone down in price repeatedly in the last 2 years. Why do you assume it has to run in the cloud w…

> I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that this implies monetization is going to be awful. Because cloud monetization was awful. It's either endless subscription pricing or ads (or both). Cloud is a terrible counter-example because it started many awful trends that strip consumer rights. For example "forever" plans that get yoinked when the vendor decides they don't like their old business model and want to…

>Because cloud monetization was awful

Citation needed

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#495

Post by chermi »

AlexandrB wrote: post #309
llamasushi wrote: post #22

The compute moat is getting absolutely insane. We're basically at the point where you need a small country's GDP just to stay in the game for one more generation of models. What gets me is that this isn't even a software moat anymore - it's literally just whoever can get their hands on enough GPUs and power infrastructure. TSMC and the power companies are the real kingmakers here. You can have all the talent in the w…

The whole LLM era is horrible. All the innovation is coming "top-down" from very well funded companies - many of them tech incumbents, so you know the monetization is going to be awful. Since the models are expensive to run it's all subscription priced and has to run in the cloud where the user has no control. The hype is insane, and so usage is being pushed by C-suite folks who have no idea whether it's actually ben…

What's the counterfactual? Where would the world be today? Certainly the present is not an optimal allocation of resources, uncertainty and hysteris make it impossible. But where do you think we'd be instead? Are you assuming all of those dollars would be going to research otherwise? They wouldn't; if not for hype "ai" LLMs, research funding would be at 2017+/- 25% levels. Also think of how many researchers are funded and PhDs are trained because of this awful LLM era. Certainly their skills transfer. (Not that brute forcing with shit tons of compute is standard "research funding").

And for the record I really wish more money was being thrown outside of LLM.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#496

Post by wiredpancake »

itronitron wrote: post #380
llamasushi wrote: post #22

The compute moat is getting absolutely insane. We're basically at the point where you need a small country's GDP just to stay in the game for one more generation of models. What gets me is that this isn't even a software moat anymore - it's literally just whoever can get their hands on enough GPUs and power infrastructure. TSMC and the power companies are the real kingmakers here. You can have all the talent in the w…

Hmm, I wonder how much bitcoin someone could mine with that amount of compute.

A lot, but maybe a lot less than you expect.

You'd be competing with ASIC miners, which are 100x more cost effective per MH/s. You don't need 100,000GB of VRAM when mining GPU, therefore its waste.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#497

Post by wiredpancake »

xnx wrote: post #466
ipython wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention water for cooling. Large data centers can use 1 million+ gallons per day.

1 million gallons is approximately 0.5 seconds of flow of the Columbia river.

It means nothing when most water is recycled anyways. It's not like the GPUs actually drink the stuff, the water just connects to heatsinks and is cycled around.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#498

Post by aoeusnth1 »

dcchambers wrote: post #388
m101 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this downvoted when it's spot on.. if reality < expectations so much money is sitting on extremely quickly depreciating assets. It will be bad. Risk is to the downside.

Being critical of AI companies on Hacker News is pretty tough these days. Either the majority of people are all-in and want to bury their heads in the sand to the real dangers and risks (economical, psychological, etc) or there's just lots of astroturfing going on.

All of the top upvoted comments are calling or implying this is a bubble. It seems to me the majority loves to imagine themselves persecuted in their home turf.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#499

Post by StephenHerlihyy »

serf wrote: post #304
bcrosby95 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're really bending over backwards to make this company seem non viable. If model training has truly turned out to be profitable at the end of each cycle, then this company is going to make money hand over fist, and investing money to out compete the competition is the right thing to do. Most mega corps started out wildly unprofitable due to investing into the core business... until they aren't. It's almost…

>I think you're really bending over backwards to make this company seem non viable. Having experienced Anthropic as a customer, I have a hard time thinking that their inevitable failure (something i'd bet on) will be model/capability-based, that's how bad they suck at every other customer-facing metric. You think Amazon is frustrating to deal with? Get into a CSR-chat-loop with an uncaring LLM followed up on by an un…

What's fun is that I have had Anthropic's AI support give me blatantly false information. It tried to tell me that I could get a full year's worth of Claude Max for only $200 dollars. When I asked if that was true it quickly backtracked and acknowledged it's mistake. I figure someone more litigious will eventually try to capitalize.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#500

Post by StephenHerlihyy »

derefr wrote: post #208
duxup wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me that each new generation of models is going to be "that" much better vs cost. Anecdotally moving from model to model I'm not seeing huge changes in many use cases. I can just pick an older model and often I can't tell the difference... Video seems to be moving forward fast from what I can tell, but it sounds like the back end cost of compute there is skyrocketing with it raising other questions.

> Anecdotally moving from model to model I'm not seeing huge changes in many use cases. Probably because you're doing things that are hitting mostly the "well-established" behaviors of these models — the ones that have been stable for at least a full model-generation now, that the AI bigcorps are currently happy keeping stable (since they achieved 100% on some previous benchmark for those behaviors, and changing them…

My understanding is that model are already merely a confederation of many smaller sub-models being used as "tools" to derive answers. I am surprised that it took us this long to solve the "AI + Microservices = GOLD!" equation.
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