Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

twitter.com

471–480 of 518 posts

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#471
post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why's it called o3 then if it's a different thing? There's already a rather extreme amount of confusion with the model names and it's not clear _at all_ which model would be "the best" in terms of response quality. Here's the current state with version numbers as far as I can piece it together (using my best guess at naming of each component of the version identifier. Might be totally wrong tho): 1) prefix (optional)…

o3 pro is based on o3 and its style and outputs will be quite similar to o3. As an analogy, think of it like this: o3-low ~ Ford Mustang with the accelerator gently pressed o3-medium ~ Ford Mustang with the accelerator pressed o3-high ~ Ford Mustang with the accelerator heavily pressed o3 pro ~ Ford Mustang GT Even though a Mustang GT is a different car than a Mustang, you don’t give it a totally different name (eg P…

Can you elaborate on what you mean that o3 pro is a GT? In particular I don't understand how to reconcile what you're saying that o3 pro is in some way fundamentally different from o3 (albeit based on o3) with this tweet:

> As o3-pro uses the same underlying model as o3, full safety details can be found in the o3 system card.

https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1932530423911096508

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#472
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my suspicion when I first deleted my account, when it felt the output got worse in ChatGPT and I found highly suspicious when I saw an errand davinci model keyword in the chatgpt url. Now I'm feeling similarly with their image generation (which is the only reason I created a paid account two months ago, and the output looks more generic by default).

Are you able to quantify how quickly your perception gets skewed by how long you use the models?

I can't quantity it for my past experience, that was more than a year ago, and I wasn't using ChatGPT daily at the time either.

This time around it felt pretty stark. I used ChatGPT to create at most 20 different image compositions. And after a couple of good ones at first, it felt worse after. One thing I've noticed recently is that when working on vector art compositions, the results start more simplistic, and often enough look like clipart thrown together. This wasn't my experience first time around. Might be temperature tweaks, or changes in their prompt that lead to this effect. Might be some random seed data they use, who knows.

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#473
post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're worried about the unlimited liability, how about you refund the credits instead of expiring them?

From my experience with billing systems it is usually not possible to refund a transaction after 6 or 12 months.

even possible with a some of them, but even in that case they're usually not "refunding" as much as they're just "making a new transaction for the same anount the other way" which does the same at the surface until reversals, voids or rejections happen and it all becomes a mess.

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#474
post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few customers pick the model based on cost, for many ChatGPT is the only one they know of.

> Very few customers pick the model based on cost. What? 3 ou of 4 companies I consulted for that started using AI for coding marked cost as an important criteria. The 4th one has virtually infinite funding so they just don't care.

> 3 out of 4 companies I consulted for that started using AI for coding marked cost as an important criteria.

And those aren't average customers.

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#475
post #375
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires video and an app. They are collecting facial biometrics.

App? So you cannot verify without a mobile phone?

You can’t sign up in the first place without a mobile phone number. They require a phone number and block VoIP services.

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

o3 pro is based on o3 and its style and outputs will be quite similar to o3. As an analogy, think of it like this: o3-low ~ Ford Mustang with the accelerator gently pressed o3-medium ~ Ford Mustang with the accelerator pressed o3-high ~ Ford Mustang with the accelerator heavily pressed o3 pro ~ Ford Mustang GT Even though a Mustang GT is a different car than a Mustang, you don’t give it a totally different name (eg P…

Can you elaborate on what you mean that o3 pro is a GT? In particular I don't understand how to reconcile what you're saying that o3 pro is in some way fundamentally different from o3 (albeit based on o3) with this tweet: > As o3-pro uses the same underlying model as o3, full safety details can be found in the o3 system card. https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1932530423911096508

Yeah, I totally get the confusion here. Unfortunately I can't give the recipe behind our models, so there's going to be some irreducible blurriness here, but the following statements are all true:

- o3 pro is based on o3

- o3 pro uses the same underlying model as o3

- o3 pro is similar to o3, but is a distinct thing that's smarter and slower

- o3 pro is not o3 with longer reasoning

In my analogy, o3 pro vs o3 is more than just an input parameter (e.g., not just the accelerator input) but less than a full difference in model (e.g., Ford Mustang vs F150). It's in between, kind of like car trim with the same body but a stronger engine. Imperfect analogy, and I apologize if this doesn't feel like it adds any clarity. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter how it works - what matters is if people find it worth using.

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#478
Can we know for sure that the price drop is accompanied by a change in the model such as quantization?

On twitter, some people say that some models perform better at night when there is a less demand which allows them to serve a non-quantized model.

Since the models are only available through API and there is no test to check which version of the model is served, it's hard to know what we're buying...

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please be careful about the alternative. I’ve seen o3 doing excessive tool calls and research for relatively simple problems.

After the last few weeks, where o3 seems desperate to do tool searches or re-crunch a bad gen even though I only asked a question about it, I assumed that the policy is to burn through credits at the fastest possible rate. With this price change, I don't know what's happening now...

Are they actually profitable? A policy to burn through credits only makes sense if they're making a profit on each token - otherwise it would be counterproductive.

Re: OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%

#480
post #226

I'd like to offer a cautionary tale that involves my experience after seeing this post. First, I tried enabling o3 via OpenRouter since I have credits with them already. I was met with the following: "OpenAI requires bringing your own API key to use o3 over the API. Set up here: https://openrouter.ai/settings/integrations " So I decided I would buy some API credits with my OpenAI account. I ponied up $20 and started…

I actually contacted the California AG to get a refund from another AI company after they failed to refund me. The AG office followed up and I got my refund. Worth my time to file because we should stop letting companies get away with this stuff where they show up with more requirements after paying. Separately they also do not need my phone number after having my name, address and credit card. Has anyone got info on…

Thank you for this comment… a relative of mine spent a ton of money on an AI product that never came a license he cannot use. I told him to contact his states AG just in case.
Post reply on HN