> Usually when people selling shovels are giving shovels away for free they're banking on a payoff. Usually a regulatory capture payoff. Or a hedge of some kind

> Usually when people selling shovels are giving shovels away for free they're banking on a payoff. Usually a regulatory capture payoff. Or a hedge of some kind? The payoff is different... everyone's banking on someone making a breakthrough regarding AGI/ASI and then being the first one to actually make a mass market product out of it that achieves dominance. But for that to happen, you need a lot of extremely smart people working for you, and you get these people working for you by giving them something to play around with.