4 ms·

Does OpenAI have a moat?

by lupire 2y ago

returnInfinity 2y ago
It still has the first mover advantage, based on the revenue and usage graphs. If somebody puts a cheaper and better version, then no moat.
- hshshshsvsv 2y ago
  It's called llama. And it's free.
  - m3kw9 2y ago
    Llama sucks man vs the best models sorry you cannot really be serious
    - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
      I have only tried it with gpt4. Seems to be doing a pretty good job? What models should I try?
- neom 2y ago
  Eh, in the b2c play, sure- if they nail the enterprise maybe not.
jjice 2y ago
As a layman outsider, it doesn't seem like it. Anthropic is doing great work (I personally prefer Claude) and now there are so many quality LLMs coming out that I don't know if OpenAI is particularly special anymore. They had a lead at first, but it feels like many others are catching up. I could be _very_ wrong though.
- cubefox 2y ago
  They recently released a new model, called "o1-preview", that is significantly ahead of the competition in terms of mathematical reasoning.
  - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 2y ago
    On benchmarks where it’s impossible to verify whether there’s contamination?
  - diffeomorphism 2y ago
    Is it? There was some discussion on HN a while ago that it is better than gpt4o but nothing about the competition and that seems quite doubtful compared to e.g. alphaproof. Also, if "significantly ahead" just means "a few months ahead" that does not justify the valuation.
  - varelse 2y ago
    [dead]
  - petesergeant 2y ago
    > that is significantly ahead Perhaps, but at most generous, it’s three months ahead of competitors I imagine
- layoric 2y ago
  Agreed. Sonnet 3.5 is still by far the most useful model I've found. o1-mini is priced similar and no where near as useful even if programming which it is suppose to excel. I recently tried o1-mini using `aider` and it would randomly start responding in russian mid way through despite all input being in english. If anything, I think Anthropic still has a decent lead when it comes to price to performance. Their update to Haiku and Opus will be very interesting.
cubefox 2y ago
It's the company that's most likely to be the first to develop superintelligence.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Based on… CEO proclamations?
  - cubefox 2y ago
    Based on a comparison with DeepMind and Anthropic.
- awfulneutral 2y ago
  If superintelligence happens, then money won't matter anymore anyway.
- snapcaster 2y ago
  I don't disagree, but what makes you say this?
- hshshshsvsv 2y ago
  Define super intelligence first maybe?
  - cubefox 2y ago
    More intelligent than any human.
    - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
      What is intelligence and how does one measure that?
      - cubefox 2y ago
        What is measurement? What is a definition?
infecto 2y ago
Hard to say in my opinion. I can say that I still use OpenAI heavily compared to the competition. It really depends though. I do believe they are still leaders in offering compelling apis and solutions.
moralestapia 2y ago
It does. "ChatGPT", GPT, "OpenAI", etc... are strong brands associated with it. Edit: You can downvote me all you want, I have plenty of karma to spare. This is OpenAI's strongest moat, whether people like it or not.
- diffeomorphism 2y ago
  GPT is a generic tool name. Those moats are pretty weak. People use Apple Idioticnaming or MS Copilot or Google whatever, which transparently use some interchangeable model in the background. Compared to chatgpt these might not be as smart, but have much easier access to OS level context. In other words: Good luck defending this moat against OS manufacturers with dominant market shares.
  - moralestapia 2y ago
    >Those moats are pretty weak. Name any other AI company with better brand awareness and that argument could make a little bit of sense. Armchair analysts have been saying that since ChatGPT came out. "Anyone could steal the market, anytime" and there's a trillion USD at play, yet no one has, why? Because that's a delusion.
    - changing1999 2y ago
      What you are overlooking is the fact that AI today and especially AI in the future is going to be about integrations. Assisted document writing, image generation for creative work, etc etc. Very few people will look at the tiny gray text saying "Powered by ChatGPT" or "Powered by Claude"; name recognition is not as relevant as eg iPhone. Anecdotally, I used to pay for ChatGPT. Now I run a nice local UI with Llama 3. They lost revenue from me.
    - diffeomorphism 2y ago
      > Name any other ~~AI~~ company with better brand awareness and that argument could make a little bit of sense. I just gave you three of them. Right now a large share of chatgpt customers come from the integration provided by those three. > "Anyone could steal the market, anytime" and there's a trillion USD at play, yet no one has, why? Because that's a delusion. Bullshit. It is not about "stealing" but about carving a significant niche. And that has happened: Apple In happens in large parts on device using not-chatgpt, google's circle to search, summaries etc use not-chatgpt, copilot uses not-chatgpt. The danger to a moat is erosion not invasion.
m3kw9 2y ago
In fact they do, it’s called servers, GPUs, scale. You need them to train new models and to serve them. They also have speed and in AI speed is a non traditional moat. They got crazy connections too because of Sam. All of that together becomes a moat that someone just can’t do a “Facebook clone” on OpenAI
- fach 2y ago
  Someone certainly can "Facebook clone" OpenAI. Google, Meta and Apple all are more well capitalized than OpenAI, operate at a larger scale and are actively training and publishing their own models.
  - m3kw9 2y ago
    Not anyone, it would be tough. You could also say the same that any one of these companies can do a Facebook clone, but it won’t be easy
- petesergeant 2y ago
  I’m building several commercial projects with LLMs at the moment. 4o mini has been sufficient, and is also super cheap. I don’t need better reasoning at this point, I just need commodification, and so I’ll be using it for each product right up to the point that it gets cheaper to move up the hosting chain a little with Llama, at which point I won’t be giving any money to them. They’ve built a great product, the price is good, but it’s entirely unclear to me that they’re continue to offer special sauce here compared to the competition.
- danpalmer 2y ago
  OpenAI is dependent on Microsoft for GPUs, who are in turn dependent on Nvidia for GPUs. It’s nearly the least moat-y version of this out there.
  - m3kw9 2y ago
    Used to be when they had no money
brotchie 2y ago
No. The race is, can OpenAI innovate on product fast enough to get folks to switch their muscle memory workflows to something new? It doesn't matter how good the model is, if folks aren't habituated to using it. At the moment, my muscle memory to go to Claude, since it seems to do better at answering engineering questions. The competition really is between FAANG and OpenAI, can OpenAI accumulate users faster than Apple, Google, Meta, etc layer in AI-based features onto their existing distribution surfaces.
layer8 2y ago
Aside from vendor lock-in by making their integrations (APIs) as idiosyncratic and multifaceted as possible, I don’t think so.

Does OpenAI have a moat?

by lupire 2y ago

Does OpenAI have a moat?

It still has the first mover advantage, based on the revenue and usage graphs. If somebody puts a cheaper and better version, then no moat.

hshshshsvsv 2y ago
It's called llama. And it's free.
- m3kw9 2y ago
  Llama sucks man vs the best models sorry you cannot really be serious
  - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
    I have only tried it with gpt4. Seems to be doing a pretty good job? What models should I try?
neom 2y ago
Eh, in the b2c play, sure- if they nail the enterprise maybe not.

jjice 2y ago

As a layman outsider, it doesn't seem like it. Anthropic is doing great work (I personally prefer Claude) and now there are so many quality LLMs coming out that I don't know if OpenAI is particularly special anymore. They had a lead at first, but it feels like many others are catching up. I could be _very_ wrong though.

cubefox 2y ago
They recently released a new model, called "o1-preview", that is significantly ahead of the competition in terms of mathematical reasoning.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 2y ago
  On benchmarks where it’s impossible to verify whether there’s contamination?
- diffeomorphism 2y ago
  Is it? There was some discussion on HN a while ago that it is better than gpt4o but nothing about the competition and that seems quite doubtful compared to e.g. alphaproof. Also, if "significantly ahead" just means "a few months ahead" that does not justify the valuation.
- varelse 2y ago
  [dead]
- petesergeant 2y ago
  > that is significantly ahead Perhaps, but at most generous, it’s three months ahead of competitors I imagine
layoric 2y ago
Agreed. Sonnet 3.5 is still by far the most useful model I've found. o1-mini is priced similar and no where near as useful even if programming which it is suppose to excel. I recently tried o1-mini using `aider` and it would randomly start responding in russian mid way through despite all input being in english. If anything, I think Anthropic still has a decent lead when it comes to price to performance. Their update to Haiku and Opus will be very interesting.

cubefox 2y ago

It's the company that's most likely to be the first to develop superintelligence.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Based on… CEO proclamations?
- cubefox 2y ago
  Based on a comparison with DeepMind and Anthropic.
awfulneutral 2y ago
If superintelligence happens, then money won't matter anymore anyway.
snapcaster 2y ago
I don't disagree, but what makes you say this?
hshshshsvsv 2y ago
Define super intelligence first maybe?
- cubefox 2y ago
  More intelligent than any human.
  - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
    What is intelligence and how does one measure that?
    - cubefox 2y ago
      What is measurement? What is a definition?

infecto 2y ago

Hard to say in my opinion. I can say that I still use OpenAI heavily compared to the competition. It really depends though. I do believe they are still leaders in offering compelling apis and solutions.

moralestapia 2y ago

It does. "ChatGPT", GPT, "OpenAI", etc... are strong brands associated with it. Edit: You can downvote me all you want, I have plenty of karma to spare. This is OpenAI's strongest moat, whether people like it or not.

diffeomorphism 2y ago
GPT is a generic tool name. Those moats are pretty weak. People use Apple Idioticnaming or MS Copilot or Google whatever, which transparently use some interchangeable model in the background. Compared to chatgpt these might not be as smart, but have much easier access to OS level context. In other words: Good luck defending this moat against OS manufacturers with dominant market shares.
- moralestapia 2y ago
  >Those moats are pretty weak. Name any other AI company with better brand awareness and that argument could make a little bit of sense. Armchair analysts have been saying that since ChatGPT came out. "Anyone could steal the market, anytime" and there's a trillion USD at play, yet no one has, why? Because that's a delusion.
  - changing1999 2y ago
    What you are overlooking is the fact that AI today and especially AI in the future is going to be about integrations. Assisted document writing, image generation for creative work, etc etc. Very few people will look at the tiny gray text saying "Powered by ChatGPT" or "Powered by Claude"; name recognition is not as relevant as eg iPhone. Anecdotally, I used to pay for ChatGPT. Now I run a nice local UI with Llama 3. They lost revenue from me.
  - diffeomorphism 2y ago
    > Name any other ~~AI~~ company with better brand awareness and that argument could make a little bit of sense. I just gave you three of them. Right now a large share of chatgpt customers come from the integration provided by those three. > "Anyone could steal the market, anytime" and there's a trillion USD at play, yet no one has, why? Because that's a delusion. Bullshit. It is not about "stealing" but about carving a significant niche. And that has happened: Apple In happens in large parts on device using not-chatgpt, google's circle to search, summaries etc use not-chatgpt, copilot uses not-chatgpt. The danger to a moat is erosion not invasion.

m3kw9 2y ago

In fact they do, it’s called servers, GPUs, scale. You need them to train new models and to serve them. They also have speed and in AI speed is a non traditional moat. They got crazy connections too because of Sam. All of that together becomes a moat that someone just can’t do a “Facebook clone” on OpenAI

fach 2y ago
Someone certainly can "Facebook clone" OpenAI. Google, Meta and Apple all are more well capitalized than OpenAI, operate at a larger scale and are actively training and publishing their own models.
- m3kw9 2y ago
  Not anyone, it would be tough. You could also say the same that any one of these companies can do a Facebook clone, but it won’t be easy
petesergeant 2y ago
I’m building several commercial projects with LLMs at the moment. 4o mini has been sufficient, and is also super cheap. I don’t need better reasoning at this point, I just need commodification, and so I’ll be using it for each product right up to the point that it gets cheaper to move up the hosting chain a little with Llama, at which point I won’t be giving any money to them. They’ve built a great product, the price is good, but it’s entirely unclear to me that they’re continue to offer special sauce here compared to the competition.
danpalmer 2y ago
OpenAI is dependent on Microsoft for GPUs, who are in turn dependent on Nvidia for GPUs. It’s nearly the least moat-y version of this out there.
- m3kw9 2y ago
  Used to be when they had no money

brotchie 2y ago

No. The race is, can OpenAI innovate on product fast enough to get folks to switch their muscle memory workflows to something new? It doesn't matter how good the model is, if folks aren't habituated to using it. At the moment, my muscle memory to go to Claude, since it seems to do better at answering engineering questions. The competition really is between FAANG and OpenAI, can OpenAI accumulate users faster than Apple, Google, Meta, etc layer in AI-based features onto their existing distribution surfaces.

layer8 2y ago

Aside from vendor lock-in by making their integrations (APIs) as idiosyncratic and multifaceted as possible, I don’t think so.