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The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

jamesoclaire.com

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Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#11

Post by ed_elliott_asc »

Jackobrien wrote: post #7

The giants knew this was coming, and soon 95% of AI tasks will be able to be done by open models (coding, research, cowork style work). So why pay a premium? Why use them at all? This leaves the labs with two options: 1) push the frontier in a way only massive scale can, and cash in on it (mythos level cyber security, recursive training, frontier science work). There’s big money for never before possible capabilities…

Won’t all they need to do is say “best in class, latest models, fastest” and wine and dine a few execs and those enterprise deals will be signed?

In this case the people tasked with using the product won’t actually mind.

Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#12

Post by odie5533 »

Jimega36 wrote: post #8
odie5533 wrote: post #5

This is what concerns me about how AI giants are planning to make money. Their product has already been commoditized at prices which for them are still subsidized to grab market share. Unless the giants invent a technological leap, their prices are going to be dragged down by open weight models and I don't see how they'll turn a profit.

Reach AGI to leapfrog whoever is behind. Burn everything to get there faster.

If Anthropic announced AGI tomorrow, how much better would that model be than Fable 5? It's looking like the road to AGI is gradual and moat-less. Models seem capable of improving other models, and even without illegal distillations many are nipping at the heels of Anthropic.

Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#13

Post by ddxv »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #10

Let's imagine that Anthropic/OpenAI fail to manufacture scarcity by villainizing Open Weight models (a sincere probability). What is left for these corporations to prop up their prices, or any margin at all? I expect scaffolding around tool use, supporting bespoke implementation and driving risk down for institutional adoption. (They might even build an insurance tool to protect accountants/lawyers from errors in com…

OpenAI, though they seem to backtrack it lately, have been slowly pushing forward of their launch of ads which would be a supplemental way to support cheaper use of their models. This is currently not as great a fit as the modern day banner ads, but it will be interesting to see where they go with that.

Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#14

Post by surgical_fire »

One thing it doesn't even mention is how good those models are. Evet since I moved to DeepSeek I had zero regrets. It performs exceptionally well. I honestly prefer it to ChatGPT (or Claude that I use at work).

I never used Fable, maybe it is that much better. DeepSeek has no problems with the workloads I give it though - if it only keeps marginally improving with each interaction I don't see myself needing to come back.

Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#15

Post by ben_w »

jorisw wrote: post #9
Jimega36 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reach AGI to leapfrog whoever is behind. Burn everything to get there faster.

'Reach AGI', the same way SpaceX will put data centers in orbit. A pipe dream.

I'm currently writing a blog post about data centres in orbit, and my current conclusion is that even though they can build one, they definitely can't put 1 million up there and would have better things to do if they could.

AGI? Too loosely defined. They lack a lot of competences which humans recognise when we see them but find it hard to put into words; on the other hand what they can do they already do faster than any human (and have greater breadth than any single human, but this usually doesn't matter because "coder" and "economist" and "translator" gets solved in human teams by hiring three people).

I do not think current ML has the tools to solve for quality. But we know it's possible for a really mediocre intelligence to make human level intelligence, because evolution made us, so for me the question of AGI is more a practical one: is it affordable?

(I also think not at the present time, but that's an "I think" not "I am analyzing it carefully").

Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#17

Post by actionfromafar »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #11
Jackobrien wrote: post #7

The giants knew this was coming, and soon 95% of AI tasks will be able to be done by open models (coding, research, cowork style work). So why pay a premium? Why use them at all? This leaves the labs with two options: 1) push the frontier in a way only massive scale can, and cash in on it (mythos level cyber security, recursive training, frontier science work). There’s big money for never before possible capabilities…

Won’t all they need to do is say “best in class, latest models, fastest” and wine and dine a few execs and those enterprise deals will be signed? In this case the people tasked with using the product won’t actually mind.

Yes, exactly that. Be Azure and Office 365 and Sharepoint and AWS where everyone else is Debian Stable on a USB thumbdrive.

Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#18

Post by NitpickLawyer »

jorisw wrote: post #9
Jimega36 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reach AGI to leapfrog whoever is behind. Burn everything to get there faster.

'Reach AGI', the same way SpaceX will put data centers in orbit. A pipe dream.

> will put data centers in orbit. A pipe dream.

Cheap access to space was once a pipe dream.

Reusable boosters were once a pipe dream.

A new player beating Boeing to the ISS was once a pipe dream.

LEO constellations were once a pipe dream.

Launching thousands of satellites was once a pipe dream.

You should know that a) they are already running "AI" chips on their current sats. and b) they are already producing kW of power on orbit and have ~10k sats on orbit. You can watch Scott Manley's video on it, where he does some rough calculations and explains the overall architecture. There is nothing stopping them to do this, from an engineering perspective. If it makes commercial sense, that's another question, but 5-10-20 years in the future things might change there as well.

Re: The unbearable cheapness of open weight models

#19

Post by NitpickLawyer »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #11
Jackobrien wrote: post #7

The giants knew this was coming, and soon 95% of AI tasks will be able to be done by open models (coding, research, cowork style work). So why pay a premium? Why use them at all? This leaves the labs with two options: 1) push the frontier in a way only massive scale can, and cash in on it (mythos level cyber security, recursive training, frontier science work). There’s big money for never before possible capabilities…

Won’t all they need to do is say “best in class, latest models, fastest” and wine and dine a few execs and those enterprise deals will be signed? In this case the people tasked with using the product won’t actually mind.

No one is getting fired for using SotA.
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