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The “core value” of many companies is a database service they don’t own, but their businesses seem to do just fine. There’s a few who get obviated over time (us

The “core value” of many companies is a database service they don’t own, but their businesses seem to do just fine. There’s a few who get obviated over time (usually they are also slow to react), but they’re a minority. I would also question the idea that OpenAI could build a code editing companion this robust in a fee weeks. It’s been a long time since the models have been the limiting factor in these tools.

ForHackernews 3y ago
Most companies have valuable data that they do own stored in a commodity database they don't. I know if Amazon started charging 10x for RDS, it would be painful but we could migrate in a few weeks.
timrogers 3y ago
I think I’d argue that the models are still a limiting factor for these kinds of tools - but there’s still also plenty of competitive space outside of models. The context you gather, the way you gather it and your prompting matters.
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  > The context you gather, the way you gather it and your prompting matters. But your API provider gets to see most of that because you send it to them along with your prompts. I don't know what the ToS for these AI providers are like, but it seems like they could trivially copy your prompts.
  - phillipcarter 3y ago
    Uhhh, no they don't? They see the results of RAG but there's very little to distinguish what is context you gathered vs. what isn't. On top of that, there's nothing in the prompt that indicates what decision was made before inserting something into a prompt. Let's say my retrieval pipeline used a mix of semantic search and keyword-based search, and I used some mechanism to decide which results from which search to include for this specific request. Nothing in the prompt will say that, and so the differentiating behavior is still kept "secret" if you will. But I think this line of thinking is a bit ridiculous. Yes, if you send your data to a database service, that provider has your data and theoretically use it to run you out of business. Except they kinda can't, both as a matter of practicality and legality. OpenAI, Anthropic, and others have SOC II compliance. The easiest way to ensure you run yourself out of the market is to start violating that stuff.

ForHackernews 3y ago

Most companies have valuable data that they do own stored in a commodity database they don't. I know if Amazon started charging 10x for RDS, it would be painful but we could migrate in a few weeks.

timrogers 3y ago

I think I’d argue that the models are still a limiting factor for these kinds of tools - but there’s still also plenty of competitive space outside of models. The context you gather, the way you gather it and your prompting matters.

ForHackernews 3y ago
> The context you gather, the way you gather it and your prompting matters. But your API provider gets to see most of that because you send it to them along with your prompts. I don't know what the ToS for these AI providers are like, but it seems like they could trivially copy your prompts.
- phillipcarter 3y ago
  Uhhh, no they don't? They see the results of RAG but there's very little to distinguish what is context you gathered vs. what isn't. On top of that, there's nothing in the prompt that indicates what decision was made before inserting something into a prompt. Let's say my retrieval pipeline used a mix of semantic search and keyword-based search, and I used some mechanism to decide which results from which search to include for this specific request. Nothing in the prompt will say that, and so the differentiating behavior is still kept "secret" if you will. But I think this line of thinking is a bit ridiculous. Yes, if you send your data to a database service, that provider has your data and theoretically use it to run you out of business. Except they kinda can't, both as a matter of practicality and legality. OpenAI, Anthropic, and others have SOC II compliance. The easiest way to ensure you run yourself out of the market is to start violating that stuff.