5 ms·

I think OpenAI may eventually have to go upmarket, as basic "good enough" AI becomes increasingly viable and cheap/free on consumer level devices, supplied by F

I think OpenAI may eventually have to go upmarket, as basic "good enough" AI becomes increasingly viable and cheap/free on consumer level devices, supplied by FOSS models and apps. Apple may be leading the way here, with Apple Silicon prioritizing AI processing and built into all their devices. These capabilities are free (or at least don't require an extra sub), and just used to sell more hardware. OpenAI is clearly going to compete in that market with its upcoming smart phone or device [1]. But what revenue model can OpenAI use to compete with Apple's and not get undercut by it? I suppose hardware + free GPT3.5, and optional subscription to GPT4 (or whatever their highest end version is). Maybe that will be competitive. I also wonder what mobile OS OpenAI will choose. Probably not Android, otherwise they would have partnered with Google. A revamped and updated Microsoft mobile OS maybe, given their MS partnership? Or something new and bespoke? I could imagine Johnny Ive demanding something new, purpose-built, and designed from scratch for a new AI-oriented UI/UX paradigm. A market for increasingly sophisticated AI that can only be done in huge GPU datacenters will exist, and that's probably where the margins will be for a long time. I think that's what OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and the others will be increasingly competing for. [1]:https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-jony-ive-talks-raise-1-bln-softbank-ai-device-venture-ft-2023-09-28/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-jony-ive-talks-rai...

vsreekanti 3y ago
Yep, we agree that the obvious direction of innovation for OSS models is smaller and cheaper, likely at roughly the same quality: https://generatingconversation.substack.com/p/open-source-llms-shouldnt-try-to https://generatingconversation.substack.com/p/open-source-ll...
- smcleod 3y ago
  Also more privacy respecting, and more customisable / flexible.
- wrsh07 3y ago
  I actually expect open source models will be small _but larger than they are today_ because phones and laptops will get dedicated chips and software for running eg the best open source (weights?) model So eventually you could be running decent sized models locally (iOS could even provide an API with fine tuning etc)
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Please Apple let me replace worthless Siri with ChatGPT on my iPhone. Would completely change how I use the device.
- bitcurious 3y ago
  If you have the new iPhone with the action button, you can set a shortcut to ask questions of ChatGPT. It’s not as fluid as Siri, and can’t control anything, but still much more useful.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Just yesterday, while driving: "Read last message." Siri: "Sorry. Dictation service is unavailable at the moment." It's past time for excuses. High-level people at Apple need to be fired over this. Hello? Tim? Do your job. Hello? Anybody home...?
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Nobody is switching away from Apple over this, so ultimately Tim is doing his job. Under his watch Apple has become the defacto choice for entire generations. Between vendor-lockin/walled gardens and societal/cultural pressures (don't want to be a green bubble!), they have one of the stickiest user bases there are.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      True, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t complain. My hope is that the upcoming eu rulings allow competition here. Ie force Apple to get out of the way of making their hardware better with better software.
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      Stop excusing shitty work from trillion-dollar companies. It makes the world a worse place.
      - 3y ago
grahamplace 3y ago
> OpenAI is clearly going to compete in that market with its upcoming phone What phone are you referring to? A quick google didn’t seem to pull up anything related to OpenAI launching a hardware product?
- BudaDude 3y ago
  They are most likely referring to this in collaboration with Jony Ive: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/openai-jony-ive-talks-raise-195536546.html?guccounter=1 https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/openai-jony-ive-talks-ra...
  - SkyMarshal 3y ago
    Yes that one.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
awesomeMilou 3y ago
> OpenAI is clearly going to compete in that market with its upcoming phone. Excuse me, I'm not an english native, you mean like a smart phone? Or do you mean some sort of other new business direction? Where did you get the info thtat they're planning to launch a phone?
- SkyMarshal 3y ago
  Yes a smartphone, /corrected. It's a recent announcement: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/technology/openai-apple-silicon-valley-supergroup-create-ai-device.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/technology/openai-apple-s...
  - sharemywin 3y ago
    It's not a really a phone. they mention ambient computing.
    - SkyMarshal 3y ago
      Oh, smart device then.
      - ShamelessC 3y ago
        Kind of a big difference between the two.
- MillionOClock 3y ago
  I believe there has been rumors that OpenAI was working with Jony Ive to create a wearable device, but it was unclear wether it would be a phone or something else.
- layer8 3y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-jony-ive-talks-raise-1-bln-softbank-ai-device-venture-ft-2023-09-28/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-jony-ive-talks-rai...
layer8 3y ago
Where are you taking the confidence that Apple will be able to catch up to OpenAI’s GPT? “Apple's built-in AI capabilities” are very weak so far.
- filterfiber 3y ago
  Not OP, In my experience apple's ML on iphones is seamless. Tap and hold on your dog in a picture and it'll cut out the background, your photos are all sorted automatically including by person (and I think by pet). OCR is seamless - you just select text in images as if it was real text. I totally understand these aren't comparable to LLMs - rumor has it apple is working on an llm - if their execution is anything like their current ML execution it'll be glorious. (Siri objectively sucks although I'm not sure it's fair to compare siri to an LLM as AFAIK siri does not do text prediction but is instead a traditional "manually crafted workflow" type of thing that just uses S2T to navigate)
  - blackoil 3y ago
    >OCR is seamless Wasn't that solved about a decade ago. Does anyone suck at that?
    - filterfiber 3y ago
      > Does anyone suck at that? Does android even have native OCR? Last I checked everything required an OCR app of varying quality (including windows/linux). On ios/macos you can literally just click on a picture and select the text in it as if it wasn't a picture. I know for sure on iOS you don't even open an app to do it, just any picture you can select it. Last I checked the Opensource OCR tools were decent but behind the closed source stuff as well. Random google result of OCR on android (could be outdated) - https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/10te5et/why_ocr_in_android_is_bad_compared_to_ioss/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/10te5et/why_oc...
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        > Does android even have native OCR? Tesseract? https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
huevosabio 3y ago
OpenAI will make its money on enterprise deals for finetuning their latest and greatest on corporate data. They are already having this big enterprise deals and I think that's where the money is. They will keep pricing the off-the-shelf AI at-cost to keep competitors at bay. As for competitors, Anthropic is the most similar to OpenAI both in capabilities and business model. I am not sure what Google is up to, since historically their focus has been in using AI to enhance their products rather than making it a product. The "dark horses" here are Stability and Mistral which both are OSS and European and will try to make that their edge as they give the models for _free_ but to institutional clients that are more sensitive to the models being used and where is the data being handled. Amazon and Apple are probably catching up. Apple likely thinks that all of this just makes their own hardware more attractive. It's not clear to me what Meta's end goal is.
tmpz22 3y ago
> I think OpenAI may eventually have to go upmarket Let me introduce you to the VC business model. Get comical amounts of money. Charge peanuts for an initial product. Build a moat once you trap enough businesses inside it. Jack up prices.
- sharemywin 3y ago
  don't forget the sneaky TOS changes you have to agree to
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  OpenAI'd better hope no one else does it too, if that's all it takes.

vsreekanti 3y ago

Yep, we agree that the obvious direction of innovation for OSS models is smaller and cheaper, likely at roughly the same quality: https://generatingconversation.substack.com/p/open-source-llms-shouldnt-try-to https://generatingconversation.substack.com/p/open-source-ll...

smcleod 3y ago
Also more privacy respecting, and more customisable / flexible.
wrsh07 3y ago
I actually expect open source models will be small _but larger than they are today_ because phones and laptops will get dedicated chips and software for running eg the best open source (weights?) model So eventually you could be running decent sized models locally (iOS could even provide an API with fine tuning etc)

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Please Apple let me replace worthless Siri with ChatGPT on my iPhone. Would completely change how I use the device.

bitcurious 3y ago
If you have the new iPhone with the action button, you can set a shortcut to ask questions of ChatGPT. It’s not as fluid as Siri, and can’t control anything, but still much more useful.
CamperBob2 3y ago
Just yesterday, while driving: "Read last message." Siri: "Sorry. Dictation service is unavailable at the moment." It's past time for excuses. High-level people at Apple need to be fired over this. Hello? Tim? Do your job. Hello? Anybody home...?
- freedomben 3y ago
  Nobody is switching away from Apple over this, so ultimately Tim is doing his job. Under his watch Apple has become the defacto choice for entire generations. Between vendor-lockin/walled gardens and societal/cultural pressures (don't want to be a green bubble!), they have one of the stickiest user bases there are.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    True, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t complain. My hope is that the upcoming eu rulings allow competition here. Ie force Apple to get out of the way of making their hardware better with better software.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    Stop excusing shitty work from trillion-dollar companies. It makes the world a worse place.
    - 3y ago

grahamplace 3y ago

> OpenAI is clearly going to compete in that market with its upcoming phone What phone are you referring to? A quick google didn’t seem to pull up anything related to OpenAI launching a hardware product?

BudaDude 3y ago
They are most likely referring to this in collaboration with Jony Ive: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/openai-jony-ive-talks-raise-195536546.html?guccounter=1 https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/openai-jony-ive-talks-ra...
- SkyMarshal 3y ago
  Yes that one.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

awesomeMilou 3y ago

> OpenAI is clearly going to compete in that market with its upcoming phone. Excuse me, I'm not an english native, you mean like a smart phone? Or do you mean some sort of other new business direction? Where did you get the info thtat they're planning to launch a phone?

SkyMarshal 3y ago
Yes a smartphone, /corrected. It's a recent announcement: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/technology/openai-apple-silicon-valley-supergroup-create-ai-device.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/technology/openai-apple-s...
- sharemywin 3y ago
  It's not a really a phone. they mention ambient computing.
  - SkyMarshal 3y ago
    Oh, smart device then.
    - ShamelessC 3y ago
      Kind of a big difference between the two.
MillionOClock 3y ago
I believe there has been rumors that OpenAI was working with Jony Ive to create a wearable device, but it was unclear wether it would be a phone or something else.
layer8 3y ago
https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-jony-ive-talks-raise-1-bln-softbank-ai-device-venture-ft-2023-09-28/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-jony-ive-talks-rai...

layer8 3y ago

Where are you taking the confidence that Apple will be able to catch up to OpenAI’s GPT? “Apple's built-in AI capabilities” are very weak so far.

filterfiber 3y ago
Not OP, In my experience apple's ML on iphones is seamless. Tap and hold on your dog in a picture and it'll cut out the background, your photos are all sorted automatically including by person (and I think by pet). OCR is seamless - you just select text in images as if it was real text. I totally understand these aren't comparable to LLMs - rumor has it apple is working on an llm - if their execution is anything like their current ML execution it'll be glorious. (Siri objectively sucks although I'm not sure it's fair to compare siri to an LLM as AFAIK siri does not do text prediction but is instead a traditional "manually crafted workflow" type of thing that just uses S2T to navigate)
- blackoil 3y ago
  >OCR is seamless Wasn't that solved about a decade ago. Does anyone suck at that?
  - filterfiber 3y ago
    > Does anyone suck at that? Does android even have native OCR? Last I checked everything required an OCR app of varying quality (including windows/linux). On ios/macos you can literally just click on a picture and select the text in it as if it wasn't a picture. I know for sure on iOS you don't even open an app to do it, just any picture you can select it. Last I checked the Opensource OCR tools were decent but behind the closed source stuff as well. Random google result of OCR on android (could be outdated) - https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/10te5et/why_ocr_in_android_is_bad_compared_to_ioss/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/10te5et/why_oc...
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > Does android even have native OCR? Tesseract? https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

huevosabio 3y ago

OpenAI will make its money on enterprise deals for finetuning their latest and greatest on corporate data. They are already having this big enterprise deals and I think that's where the money is. They will keep pricing the off-the-shelf AI at-cost to keep competitors at bay. As for competitors, Anthropic is the most similar to OpenAI both in capabilities and business model. I am not sure what Google is up to, since historically their focus has been in using AI to enhance their products rather than making it a product. The "dark horses" here are Stability and Mistral which both are OSS and European and will try to make that their edge as they give the models for _free_ but to institutional clients that are more sensitive to the models being used and where is the data being handled. Amazon and Apple are probably catching up. Apple likely thinks that all of this just makes their own hardware more attractive. It's not clear to me what Meta's end goal is.

tmpz22 3y ago

> I think OpenAI may eventually have to go upmarket Let me introduce you to the VC business model. Get comical amounts of money. Charge peanuts for an initial product. Build a moat once you trap enough businesses inside it. Jack up prices.

sharemywin 3y ago
don't forget the sneaky TOS changes you have to agree to
robertlagrant 3y ago
OpenAI'd better hope no one else does it too, if that's all it takes.