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Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

simonwillison.net

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Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#351

Post by rootusrootus »

devin wrote: post #334
tokioyoyo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“AI coding is a fad” is not just one big camp of similar-minded people. Different groups have to give up on their pre-existing beliefs in order to be ok with AI coding. Think of people who were very strict with variable names. People who pushed for multiple-levels deep of abstractions for a single API logic that’s not going to be reused. People who believed that coding is craft, rather than just a process to get to t…

"as most arguments don't apply to today's world" makes me want to roll my eyes so hard at you. The vast majority of problems we had with building complicated systems are all still just sitting there. People are speedrunning relearning things we've known about software engineering for decades. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Between AI and the stock market (which of course relates directly to AI), I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard lately another variation of “this time is different.” Sometimes so close to those words that I wonder why the person speaking them doesn’t feel a bit tingly. Great big warning signs all around.

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#352

Post by conartist6 »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #327
colonelspace wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just say their performance (OKR, KPI, whatever "impact" metric you want) was indistinguishable from a peer that used the AI/LLM monthly allowance in full. Maybe a $10k raise would be nice?

Theyd get a bad review for leaving performance on the table. When has finishing your work ever resulted in anything other than more work?

It's disturbingly anti-merotocratic. You're not allowed to prove that you're more useful without AI because they just assume that AI is a 10x multiplier on everyone.

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#353

Post by tokioyoyo »

devin wrote: post #334
tokioyoyo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“AI coding is a fad” is not just one big camp of similar-minded people. Different groups have to give up on their pre-existing beliefs in order to be ok with AI coding. Think of people who were very strict with variable names. People who pushed for multiple-levels deep of abstractions for a single API logic that’s not going to be reused. People who believed that coding is craft, rather than just a process to get to t…

"as most arguments don't apply to today's world" makes me want to roll my eyes so hard at you. The vast majority of problems we had with building complicated systems are all still just sitting there. People are speedrunning relearning things we've known about software engineering for decades. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The examples I gave, and the arguments that usually support them don’t really translate into “building complicated systems”. I was talking about the arguments in support of variable naming flamewars, etc.

I’m not proponent of AI generating everything without any supervision as of now. But willing to change my mind when it gets better.

Most software engineering jobs are not cutting-edge tech, or research, or solving unsolved problems. Integrations, APIs, figma-to-react pipelines, devops and etc. is what people get hired for. All those can be done much faster in the same-or-better quality by an experienced person with the supplement of AI. It’s hard to imagine any company would go against the grain and slow things down on purpose.

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#354

Post by jiggawatts »

geysersam wrote: post #345
dgellow wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One aspect Paul Kedrosky mentioned recently is the concept of „duration mismatch“. The price per token goes down over time (either because the AI vendor reduces due to competition pressure, or because customers are now incentivized to use older cheaper models). But datacenters are financed through debt, with the assumption their revenue increases over time. Quoting him: „[AI vendors are] paying for a fixed cost with…

Current AI datacenter/model development investment rate is roughly 1T/year. That's a lot. But the US economy is 33T/year. So the investment pays back (roughly) over ten years if, each year, the AI investments increase overall productivity by 0.6%, assuming the AI companies can capture half of the value of that productivity gain. > „[AI vendors are] paying for a fixed cost with a depreciating commodity“ That's just a…

The $1T number seems more promises than reality, which is closer to the $300B to $500B level. Still a big number, but between a third and a half of the value used in the popular media.

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#355

Post by arealaccount »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #288
satvikpendem wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, they'll just lobby to ban Chinese models instead to keep their token revenues high. > Compounding the problem, labs in China often release dual-use capable models as open-weight. Once a model is open-weight, safeguards that do exist can be removed, making the model available to any state or non-state actor to use for malicious purposes, including the cyber and CBRN misuse those safeguards were built to p…

If you do the math, they don't have a choice. If China captures America's AI market it'll cause a major depression. They'll give it the BYD treatment, though it'll be a lot less effective.

The “you wouldn’t download a car” meme applies here

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#356

Post by dmayle »

chmod775 wrote: post #269
saulpw wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you can't talk to them about the flow of the code. You can't ask them for their thinking as to why certain things are. You can absolutely do this. It's even right most of the time.

Let's be real. Most of the time you ask an LLM "Why did you do it like this?", it responds with something along the lines of "Oops. My bad. You're right to point this out." You even have a fair chance of getting a response like that when there isn't anything wrong and the question wasn't rhetorical - which perfectly illustrates the level of the genuine understanding LLMs operate at.

That's because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what an LLM is. The only correct answer to "Why did you do it like this?" is that the specific combination of input text and RNG state caused this particular output. There's no reasoning to be had.

* EDIT * What's with the downvoting? That's a correct description of what happened. You can't ask an LLM why it did something and expect a coherent response, because there's no thinking chain, and no stored thinking state... At best, you can get a reconstruction of how the context relates to the output (basically a summarization of the context).

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#357

Post by LAC-Tech »

tuesdaynight wrote: post #138

Why there are so many people that still believe that AI coding is a fad? It's something that started less than two years ago and companies are already paying thousands per seat. I know one that gives you 5k per month. Which other tool went from nothing to this level of acceptance so quickly?

Because we have spent a lot of time and money using AI to generate code and have been unimpressed with the results.

As for why they got accepted so quickly 1) the industry's long running desperation to deskill computer programming 2) the addictive psychology baked into LLMs "That's an elegant solution! Shall I ... ?"

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#358

Post by ssss11 »

saulpw wrote: post #239
OptionOfT wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because companies are betting that this spending will allow them to reduce cost by firing people. Right now the AI LLM PRs we're seeing are just introducing more work for other people, while these so-called builders are looking good with their new dashboards and functionality they're demoing. But you can't talk to them about the flow of the code. You can't ask them for their thinking as to why certain things are. It'…

> But you can't talk to them about the flow of the code. You can't ask them for their thinking as to why certain things are. You can absolutely do this. It's even right most of the time.

And you can certainly tell it the flow you want (and any other constraints) in the prompt.

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#359

Post by tokioyoyo »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #315
tokioyoyo wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to go on record, as of today, I’m a big believer that a person that knows all that stuff is much more productive with AI-coding than a person who doesn’t. I have no idea how we can get people motivated to learn these through trial-and-error when AI coding exists though. I remember the days of spending hours on stupid bugs that AI can resolve within a minute. But I recall learning heavily from those experiences.…

I honestly feel like my own learning has accelerated after using AI. Simply because now it's so easy to write the same thing in so many different languages, I can e.g. learn pros and cons of each language, which otherwise would have been I think unfathomable to me. I have now created so much stuff I wouldn't have had time to create. I setup k3s, and tons of what would be otherwise unnecessarily complicated stuff on m…

The question is if you already had intuitive understanding of what those things “are”. The languages and systems have been easier to learn once you picked up a couple. Same applies here as well.

The question is, how quickly does a junior with no experience builds intuition without trial and error.

Re: Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing

#360

Post by javier2 »

baggy_trough wrote: post #280
chmod775 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be real. Most of the time you ask an LLM "Why did you do it like this?", it responds with something along the lines of "Oops. My bad. You're right to point this out." You even have a fair chance of getting a response like that when there isn't anything wrong and the question wasn't rhetorical - which perfectly illustrates the level of the genuine understanding LLMs operate at.

Can't remember the last time that happened.

Happened to me at least three times the past 14 days. I point out where it made a design decision that causes data loss. «Oops my mistake»
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