91–100 of 107 posts
This has the to be the dumbest blog and argumentation i've read the whole year... Corporations aren't charities. A ChatGPT Pro subscription isn't necessary for human survival in those countries. A ChatGPT Pro subscription isn't necessary for basic human needs.
So? Perhaps they should be.
A person in a low-income country would also need to work for 38.6 months ($2400?) to afford to hire one of my electricians for two days of labor. Things in high-income countries are expensive, who would’ve guessed??
If I lived somewhere that the average income is $200/month, there’s a lot of things on Maslow’s Hierarchy that come before ‘ChatGPT Pro’… like um a stable electrical grid, clean water, sewer system, etc.
Normally software has a near 0 marginal cost. This allows sellers to offer steap discounts because they cost the seller almost nothing. In many cases, sellers are better off having you use their software without paying instead of not using it; because they are out almost no money, but have increased their odds of a future sale
High end LLMs are different. Sellers are not setting their price to maximize revenue. They are setting their price to cover the marginal cost of providing the service plus margin.
Lowering their price is not a matter of price discrimination. It is a matter of engineering a cheeper product.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like this is a huge problem with the progressive movement in the US. Morally sound arguments that rarely make practical or economic sense - and no, "tax the rich" doesn't get us there: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/ten-myths-about-the-u-s-tax...
That's not an unfair assessment, but I would pose additional questions: Why does doing the morally sound thing always have to be easier, better, and cheaper than ruining the world and creating human misery? Why must the morally superior argument be financially unassailable? I'm getting older and angrier and I've grown tired of meeting greedy, disingenuous adversaries halfway just to have my hand slapped away after th…
We could pay to run LLMS at highly subsidized rates for the global poor. Or we could take the money we would have spent running those LLMs and just give it to the poor. I'm not saying direct cash infusions is the best way of spending that money. But doubling their income seems a lot more effective that a ChatGPT subscription.
>I find this very troubling for two reasons. First, while Claude and OpenAI are new, Google has been around for a long time. It should have thought better about pricing so that the tool is within the reach of the developing world. Why? I don't see a practical argument for why Google would want to offer this service at a massive loss.
The author is making a moral argument, not a practical (from Google’s perspective) one.
Not everything can be reasonably available to everyone if it is cost prohibitive.
There is an access gap to almost everything including water when we extend to low income countries.
Also, don't forget that Google for decades have provided free Google search that has allowed the world to search for information for free.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Will you have access to it during an exam? During an interview? Can't you pass a calculus exam without it?
I can think of a few job related reasons you’d use it, you know, to make money. If those few specific ones you mentioned are all you can think of then…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not an unfair assessment, but I would pose additional questions: Why does doing the morally sound thing always have to be easier, better, and cheaper than ruining the world and creating human misery? Why must the morally superior argument be financially unassailable? I'm getting older and angrier and I've grown tired of meeting greedy, disingenuous adversaries halfway just to have my hand slapped away after th…
Once you accept that doing the morally sound thing costs money, the question becomes what is the most good you could do with that money. We could pay to run LLMS at highly subsidized rates for the global poor. Or we could take the money we would have spent running those LLMs and just give it to the poor. I'm not saying direct cash infusions is the best way of spending that money. But doubling their income seems a lot…
Now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure where to put cost-effective LLM access in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not an unfair assessment, but I would pose additional questions: Why does doing the morally sound thing always have to be easier, better, and cheaper than ruining the world and creating human misery? Why must the morally superior argument be financially unassailable? I'm getting older and angrier and I've grown tired of meeting greedy, disingenuous adversaries halfway just to have my hand slapped away after th…
Once you accept that doing the morally sound thing costs money, the question becomes what is the most good you could do with that money. We could pay to run LLMS at highly subsidized rates for the global poor. Or we could take the money we would have spent running those LLMs and just give it to the poor. I'm not saying direct cash infusions is the best way of spending that money. But doubling their income seems a lot…
Relative to the topic of this thread, providing access to LLMs at a loss would not be at the top of my list of ways to right moral wrongs either. But more broadly, taxing the rich costs nothing, unless one believes that Reagan economic theory is backed by actual empirical evidence. Some actions in civic life are done for symbolic reasons. People doff their hats and apply their right hand to their precordium for symbolic reasons. We can progressively tax all to symbolize something about economic fairness and opposition to the winner-take-all ethos.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once you accept that doing the morally sound thing costs money, the question becomes what is the most good you could do with that money. We could pay to run LLMS at highly subsidized rates for the global poor. Or we could take the money we would have spent running those LLMs and just give it to the poor. I'm not saying direct cash infusions is the best way of spending that money. But doubling their income seems a lot…
> Once you accept that doing the morally sound thing costs money, the question becomes what is the most good you could do with that money. Relative to the topic of this thread, providing access to LLMs at a loss would not be at the top of my list of ways to right moral wrongs either. But more broadly, taxing the rich costs nothing, unless one believes that Reagan economic theory is backed by actual empirical evidence…
It does though.
1. As one of "the rich" that progressives target continuously, I still can't afford a house in CA. I'm moving to Washington and CA will lose many median Californians' worth of income.
2. Nearly every EU country that attempted wealth taxes (another form of "taxing the rich") recalled them due to capital flight that offset the tax income.
3. California has passed the peak of its Laffer curve, where higher taxes don't provide higher returns due to capital flight. https://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/detail/californias-laffer-cur...
4. I personally don't feel the value in working harder or smarter to earn more, because the marginal returns are so low due to taxes. Discouraging innovation is not good for the country.
> We can progressively tax all to symbolize something about economic fairness
Despite the common memes the US has one of the most progressive tax systems in the world. https://manhattan.institute/article/correcting-the-top-10-ta...
Anyways, "taxing the rich" simply doesn't get us there:
1. You could liquidate every billionaire, including all their assets, and you wouldn't fund the government for 9 months.
2. The rest of us that progressives consider "rich" are W-2s that already pay a fuckton in taxes. If you look at the sources above, this is explained clearly.
3. Contrary to the meme, the biggest objective gap in tax income is not on the rich but on our middle class, which does not pay its fair share wrt our EU counterparts (explaining the gap necessary to fund the desired social services, which taxing the rich would not cover due to its comparatively small size). 40% of Americans pay no federal income tax! https://freakonomics.com/podcast/ten-myths-about-the-u-s-tax...
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Finally, at the core of your assumption is the idea that more taxes help. As someone that has worked in both government-funded labs and government contracting, I can promise you they don't. The sheer wastage is mind boggling, honestly sickening. It makes the our tech mega corps look tiny. I used to have a progressive view on taxation until I saw the infinite money black hole that was government spending.