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The beginning of scarcity in AI

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Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#191

Post by mark_l_watson »

sixhobbits wrote: post #189

There is a lot of demand still coming for sure but I think I'm more optimistic. Ready to eat my hat on this but - higher prices will result in huge demand destruction too. Currently we're burning a lot of tokens just because they're cheap, but a lot of heavy users are going to spend the time moving flows over to Haiku or onprem micro models the moment pricing becomes a topic. - data centers do not take that long to b…

I agree and I am amazed at how much money some individuals and also a friend's company burn on token costs. I get huge benefits from this tech just using gemini-cli and Antigravity a few times a week, briefly. I also currently invest about $15/month in GLM-5.1 running Hermes Agent on a small dedicated VPS - fantastically good value for getting stuff done and this requires little of my time besides planning what I need done.

I think the token burners are doing it wrong. I think that long term it is better to move a little slower, do most analysis and thinking myself, and just use AI when the benefits are large while taking little of my time and money to use the tools.

Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#192

Post by prox »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #159
prox wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also can’t wait for the time when few know how to code. Just like how many folks don’t know html from css when the homebrew website went away. Their might always be llms, but the dependence is an interesting topic.

Look no further to be honest; look at older generation programming languages like COBOL and how sought-after good developers for that language are. But I'm also afraid / certain that LLMs are able to figure out legacy code (as long as enough fits in their context window), so it's tenuous at best. Also, funny you mentioned HTML / CSS because for a while (...in the 90's / 2000's) it looked like nobody needed to actuall…

Well, on the 2nd paragraph, I have no illusion they’ll figure out more as they are being trained. I am more thinking of the custodians (as coders turn into that)

Say you are a good coder now, but you are becoming a custodian, checking the llm work will slowly erode your skills. Maybe if you got a good memory or an amazing skillset it might be some time, but if you don’t use it, you lose it.

Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#194

Post by kjkjadksj »

jakeinspace wrote: post #29
henry2023 wrote: post #21

The US is bound by energy and China is bound by compute power. The one who solves its limitation first will end this “Scarcity Era”.

China is installing something like 500 GW of wind and solar per year now. Even if they're only able to build and otherwise access chips that have half the SoTA performance per watt, they will win.

Win what exactly?

Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#195

Post by tempoponet »

busfahrer wrote: post #104
com2kid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China already operates like this. Low cost specialized models are the name of the game. Cheaper to train, easy to deploy. The US has a problem of too much money leading to wasteful spending. If we go back to the 80s/90s, remember OS/2 vs Windows. OS/2 had more resources, more money behind it, more developers, and they built a bigger system that took more resources to run. Mac vs Lisa. Mac team had constraints, Lisa t…

> Low cost specialized models Can you elaborate on this? Is this something that companies would train themselves?

You can fine-tune a model, but there are also smaller models fine-tuned for specific work like structured output and tool calling. You can build automated workflows that are largely deterministic and only slot in these models where you specifically need an LLM to do a bit of inference. If frontier models are a sledgehammer, this approach is the scalpel.

A common example would be that people are moving tasks from their OpenClaw setup off of expensive Anthropic APIs onto cheaper models for simple tasks like tagging emails, summarizing articles, etc.

Combined with memory systems, internal APIs, or just good documentation, a lot of tasks don't actually require much compute.

Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#196

Post by wg0 »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #166
wg0 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming there are 10 million developers and everyone is at $200 max plan, that would be $2 billion/month or $24 billion/year maximum. Note - this is just the revenue not the profit. No salaries, no compute paid for. Just plain revenue. Profit would be way less. But even that - if we take it to $24 billion/year and we take a 10x multiple, the company is barely valued at $240 billon dollar, lets be generous and make i…

Pro and Max plans are a tiny fraction of their revenue. Many businesses are spending thousands of dollars per head per month.

Really? Not challenging you, genuinely asking for more details.

If that is true, I think AI is counterproductive from the bean counter's standpoint.

Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#197

Post by FloorEgg »

lelanthran wrote: post #115
FloorEgg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a major logic flaw in what you're saying. 'If I am a grocery store that pays $1 for oranges and sells them for $0.50, I can't say, "I don't have enough oranges."' How about 'if I'm a grocery store and I see no limit on demand for oranges at $.50 but they are currently $1, I can say 'if oranges were cheaper I could sell orders of magnitude more of them'. Buying oranges for $1 and selling for $0.5 is an invest…

> Buying oranges for $1 and selling for $0.5 is an investment into acquiring market share and customer relationships It's a delusion that customers are going to remain with the behemoths when a Qwen model run by an independent is $10/m, unlimited usage. This is not a market that can be locked-in with network effects, and the current highly-invested players have no moat.

[dead]

Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#199

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #159
prox wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also can’t wait for the time when few know how to code. Just like how many folks don’t know html from css when the homebrew website went away. Their might always be llms, but the dependence is an interesting topic.

Look no further to be honest; look at older generation programming languages like COBOL and how sought-after good developers for that language are. But I'm also afraid / certain that LLMs are able to figure out legacy code (as long as enough fits in their context window), so it's tenuous at best. Also, funny you mentioned HTML / CSS because for a while (...in the 90's / 2000's) it looked like nobody needed to actuall…

The whole “you can make a lot of money programming in COBOL” is one of those myths that needs to die.

Even the briefest of Google searches show they make around the same as any other enterprise dev if not slightly less.

Re: The beginning of scarcity in AI

#200

Post by ipaddr »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #159
prox wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also can’t wait for the time when few know how to code. Just like how many folks don’t know html from css when the homebrew website went away. Their might always be llms, but the dependence is an interesting topic.

Look no further to be honest; look at older generation programming languages like COBOL and how sought-after good developers for that language are. But I'm also afraid / certain that LLMs are able to figure out legacy code (as long as enough fits in their context window), so it's tenuous at best. Also, funny you mentioned HTML / CSS because for a while (...in the 90's / 2000's) it looked like nobody needed to actuall…

COBOL developers are sought after but still paid less than a grad doing crud. Is that the future?
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