That is, these companies are largely not doing the hard part, which is creating and training these models in the first place. No, there is no real "hard part"

That is, these companies are largely not doing the hard part, which is creating and training these models in the first place. No, there is no real "hard part" to AI current. Training is simply "the expensive part". It seems "the bitter lesson" has gone from reflection to paradigm[1] and with that as paradigm, the primary barrier to entering AI is cash for cpu cycles, other things matter but recipes is relatively simple and relatively available. [1] http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html