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GPT-4.5 feels like OpenAI's way of discovering just how much we'll pay for diminishing returns. The leap from GPT-4o to 4.5 isn't a leap—it's an expensive tipt

GPT-4.5 feels like OpenAI's way of discovering just how much we'll pay for diminishing returns. The leap from GPT-4o to 4.5 isn't a leap—it's an expensive tiptoe toward incremental improvements, priced like a luxury item without the luxury payoff. With pricing at 15x GPT-4o, they're practically daring us not to use it. Given this, I wouldn't be surprised if GPT-4.5 quietly disappears from the API once OpenAI finishes squeezing insights (and cash) out of this experiment.

hooverd 2y ago
They should have called it "ChatGPT Enterprise".
- tsunego 2y ago
  Exactly! designed specifically for people who love burning corporate budgets.
  - numba888 2y ago
    OpenAI is going to add it to Plus subscriptions. I.e. available for many at no additional cost. Likely with restrictions line N prompts/hour. As for API price, when it matters businesses and people are willing to pay much more for just a bit better results. OpenAI doesn't take the other options away. So we don't lose anything.
- fodkodrasz 2y ago
  IMO the 4o output is lot more Enterprise-compatible, the 4.5 being straight to the point and more natural is quite the opposite. Pricing-wise your point stands. Disclaimer: have not tried 4.5 yet, just skimmed through the announcement, using 4o regularly.
TZubiri 2y ago
Time to enter the tick cycle. I ask chatgpt to give me a map highlighting all spanish speaking countries, gives me stable diffusion trash. Just gotta do the grunt work, add a tool with a map api. Integrate with google maps for transit stuff. It's a good LLM model already it doesn't need to be einstein and solve aerospatial equations. We just need to wait until they realize their limits and find the humility to build yet another useful product that won't conquer the world.
- Willingham 2y ago
  I’ve thought of LLM’s as google 2.0 for some time now. Truly a world changing technology similar to how google changed the world, likely to have an even larger impact than google had as we create highly specialized Implementations of the technology in the coming decade…but it’s not energy positive nuclear fusion, or a polynomial time NP solver, it’s just google 2.0
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    Google 2.0 where you have to check every answer it gives you because it's authoritative about nothing. Works great when the output is small enough to unit test or immediately try in situations with no possible negative outcomes. Anything larger? Skip the LLM slop and go to the source. You have to go to the source, anyway.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      You have to go to the source, anyway. Yeah, and then check that. I don't get this argument at all. People who uncritically swallow the first answer or two they get from Google have a name... but that would just derail the thread into politics.
      - LPisGood 2y ago
        There is something to be said for trusting people’s (or systems of people’s) authority. For example, have you ever personally verified that humans went to the moon? Have you ever done the experiments to prove the Earth is round?
        sillyfluke 2y ago
        This is not a helpful phrasing I think. Sources allow the reader to go as far down the rabbit hole as they are willing to or knowledgable enough to go. For example, if I'm looking for some medical finding and I get to a source that's a clinical study from a reputable publication, I may be satisfied and stop there since this is not my area of expertise. However, a person with knowledge of the field may be able to parse the study and pick it apart better than I could. Hence, their search would not end there since they would be unsatisfied with just the source I was satisfied with. On the other hand, having no verifiable sources should leave everyone unsatisfied.
zamadatix 2y ago
Even this is a bit overly complicated/optimistic to me. Why not something as simple as: OpenAI has been building larger and larger models to great success for a long time. As a result, they were excited this one was going to be so much larger=so much better that the price to run it would be well worth the huge jump they were planning to get from it. What really happened is this method of scaling hit a wall and they were left with an expensive dud they won't get much out of but they have to release something for now otherwise they start falling well behind on the boards the next few months. Meanwhile they scramble focus to find other means of scaling like "chain of thought + runtime" provided.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Thank you so much for this comment. I don't really understand the need for people to go straight to semi-conspiratorial hypotheses, when the simpler explanation makes so much more sense. All the evidence is that this model is much larger than previous ones, so they must charge a lot more for inference because it costs so much more to run. OpenAI were the OGs when it came to scaling, so it's not surprising they went this route and eventually hit a wall. I don't at all blame OpenAI for going down this path (indeed, I laud them for making expensive bets), but I do blame all the quote-un-quote "thought leaders" who were writing breathless posts about how AGI was just around the corner because things would just scale linearly forever. It was classic "based on historical data, this 10 year old will be 20 feet tall by the time he's 30" thinking, and lots of people called them out on this, and they either just ignored it or responded with "oh, simple not-in-the-know peons" dismissiveness.
  - kruxigt 2y ago
    [dead]
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    It is weird because this is a board for working programmers for the most part. So like, who’s seen a gram conspiracy actually be accomplished? Probably now many. A lackluster product that gets released even though it sucks because too many people are highly motivated not to notice that it sucks? Everybody has experienced that, right?
Kerbonut 2y ago
Apparently, OpenAI API “credits” expire after a year. I stupidly put another $20 and trying to blow through them, 4.5 is the easiest way considering recent 4o has fallen out of favor for other models and I don’t want to just let them expire again. An expiry after only one year is asinine.
- Chance-Device 2y ago
  Yes. I also discovered this, and was also forced to blow through my credits in a rush. Terrible policy.
  - glenstein 2y ago
    I'm learning this for the first time now. I don't appreciate having to anticipate how many credits I'll use like its an FSA account.
  - heed 2y ago
    >Terrible policy. And unfortunately one not exclusive to OpenAI. Anthropic credits also expire after 1 year.
    - gloosx 2y ago
      Not sure how it's with OpenAI, but Anthropic is so money-hungry, they won't even let you remove your debit card data from your account without a week-long support encounter.
- nickfromseattle 2y ago
  I worked at a company that expired credits after 365 days. My layman understanding is the credits sit as a liability until consumed, and the alternative is having potentially millions accounts with a combined hundreds of millions of dollars in 'liabilities' on their books. More info from ChatGPT here: https://chatgpt.com/share/67c5ad36-2f84-8001-a61f-11d4e1713516 https://chatgpt.com/share/67c5ad36-2f84-8001-a61f-11d4e17135...
jstummbillig 2y ago
This is how pricing on human labour works. Nobody expects an employee that costs twice as much to produce twice the output for any given task. All that is expected is that they can do a narrow set of things, that another person can't.

hooverd 2y ago

They should have called it "ChatGPT Enterprise".

tsunego 2y ago
Exactly! designed specifically for people who love burning corporate budgets.
- numba888 2y ago
  OpenAI is going to add it to Plus subscriptions. I.e. available for many at no additional cost. Likely with restrictions line N prompts/hour. As for API price, when it matters businesses and people are willing to pay much more for just a bit better results. OpenAI doesn't take the other options away. So we don't lose anything.
fodkodrasz 2y ago
IMO the 4o output is lot more Enterprise-compatible, the 4.5 being straight to the point and more natural is quite the opposite. Pricing-wise your point stands. Disclaimer: have not tried 4.5 yet, just skimmed through the announcement, using 4o regularly.

TZubiri 2y ago

Time to enter the tick cycle. I ask chatgpt to give me a map highlighting all spanish speaking countries, gives me stable diffusion trash. Just gotta do the grunt work, add a tool with a map api. Integrate with google maps for transit stuff. It's a good LLM model already it doesn't need to be einstein and solve aerospatial equations. We just need to wait until they realize their limits and find the humility to build yet another useful product that won't conquer the world.

Willingham 2y ago
I’ve thought of LLM’s as google 2.0 for some time now. Truly a world changing technology similar to how google changed the world, likely to have an even larger impact than google had as we create highly specialized Implementations of the technology in the coming decade…but it’s not energy positive nuclear fusion, or a polynomial time NP solver, it’s just google 2.0
- dingnuts 2y ago
  Google 2.0 where you have to check every answer it gives you because it's authoritative about nothing. Works great when the output is small enough to unit test or immediately try in situations with no possible negative outcomes. Anything larger? Skip the LLM slop and go to the source. You have to go to the source, anyway.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    You have to go to the source, anyway. Yeah, and then check that. I don't get this argument at all. People who uncritically swallow the first answer or two they get from Google have a name... but that would just derail the thread into politics.
    - LPisGood 2y ago
      There is something to be said for trusting people’s (or systems of people’s) authority. For example, have you ever personally verified that humans went to the moon? Have you ever done the experiments to prove the Earth is round?
      - sillyfluke 2y ago
        This is not a helpful phrasing I think. Sources allow the reader to go as far down the rabbit hole as they are willing to or knowledgable enough to go. For example, if I'm looking for some medical finding and I get to a source that's a clinical study from a reputable publication, I may be satisfied and stop there since this is not my area of expertise. However, a person with knowledge of the field may be able to parse the study and pick it apart better than I could. Hence, their search would not end there since they would be unsatisfied with just the source I was satisfied with. On the other hand, having no verifiable sources should leave everyone unsatisfied.

zamadatix 2y ago

Even this is a bit overly complicated/optimistic to me. Why not something as simple as: OpenAI has been building larger and larger models to great success for a long time. As a result, they were excited this one was going to be so much larger=so much better that the price to run it would be well worth the huge jump they were planning to get from it. What really happened is this method of scaling hit a wall and they were left with an expensive dud they won't get much out of but they have to release something for now otherwise they start falling well behind on the boards the next few months. Meanwhile they scramble focus to find other means of scaling like "chain of thought + runtime" provided.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Thank you so much for this comment. I don't really understand the need for people to go straight to semi-conspiratorial hypotheses, when the simpler explanation makes so much more sense. All the evidence is that this model is much larger than previous ones, so they must charge a lot more for inference because it costs so much more to run. OpenAI were the OGs when it came to scaling, so it's not surprising they went this route and eventually hit a wall. I don't at all blame OpenAI for going down this path (indeed, I laud them for making expensive bets), but I do blame all the quote-un-quote "thought leaders" who were writing breathless posts about how AGI was just around the corner because things would just scale linearly forever. It was classic "based on historical data, this 10 year old will be 20 feet tall by the time he's 30" thinking, and lots of people called them out on this, and they either just ignored it or responded with "oh, simple not-in-the-know peons" dismissiveness.
- kruxigt 2y ago
  [dead]
- bee_rider 2y ago
  It is weird because this is a board for working programmers for the most part. So like, who’s seen a gram conspiracy actually be accomplished? Probably now many. A lackluster product that gets released even though it sucks because too many people are highly motivated not to notice that it sucks? Everybody has experienced that, right?

Kerbonut 2y ago

Apparently, OpenAI API “credits” expire after a year. I stupidly put another $20 and trying to blow through them, 4.5 is the easiest way considering recent 4o has fallen out of favor for other models and I don’t want to just let them expire again. An expiry after only one year is asinine.

Chance-Device 2y ago
Yes. I also discovered this, and was also forced to blow through my credits in a rush. Terrible policy.
- glenstein 2y ago
  I'm learning this for the first time now. I don't appreciate having to anticipate how many credits I'll use like its an FSA account.
- heed 2y ago
  >Terrible policy. And unfortunately one not exclusive to OpenAI. Anthropic credits also expire after 1 year.
  - gloosx 2y ago
    Not sure how it's with OpenAI, but Anthropic is so money-hungry, they won't even let you remove your debit card data from your account without a week-long support encounter.
nickfromseattle 2y ago
I worked at a company that expired credits after 365 days. My layman understanding is the credits sit as a liability until consumed, and the alternative is having potentially millions accounts with a combined hundreds of millions of dollars in 'liabilities' on their books. More info from ChatGPT here: https://chatgpt.com/share/67c5ad36-2f84-8001-a61f-11d4e1713516 https://chatgpt.com/share/67c5ad36-2f84-8001-a61f-11d4e17135...

jstummbillig 2y ago

This is how pricing on human labour works. Nobody expects an employee that costs twice as much to produce twice the output for any given task. All that is expected is that they can do a narrow set of things, that another person can't.