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I do worry about the viability of OpenAI in particular. So much of its talent went to other firms which then built up amazing capaibilities like Anthropic with

I do worry about the viability of OpenAI in particular. So much of its talent went to other firms which then built up amazing capaibilities like Anthropic with Claude. And then they also have the threat of OpenSource models like DeepSeek v3.1 and soon DeepSeek R2 while at the same time OpenAI is raising its prices to absurd levels. I guess they are trying to be the Apple of the AI world... maybe... That said, I expect protectionist policies will be enabled by the US government to protect them and also X.AI/Grok from foreign competition, in particular Chinese.

JesseTG 2y ago
Are there specific policies that come to mind?
- danans 2y ago
  The most obvious one being proposed is banning Chinese models from the US (like China bans Google, etc). At the extreme end, some members of the administration has already floated ideas like prosecuting users who download Chinese models.
  - JesseTG 2y ago
    How would that even be enforced?
diggan 2y ago
> worry about the viability of OpenAI in particular [...] they also have the threat of OpenSource models It's a real shame OpenAI didn't succeed with their core and most fundamental mission of being open and improving humanity as a whole, where new FOSS models would have been seen as a success, not as a competitor or threat. We're all worse off because of it.
- aiono 2y ago
  > It's a real shame OpenAI didn't succeed with their core and most fundamental mission of being open and improving humanity as a whole You frame it like they sincerely had this mission at all. Which I doubt seriously. Why would anyone who funded them have such aim?
  - diggan 2y ago
    Well, I mean, if we take what they themselves said (at the time) as truth, then that was their sincere mission: > OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact. https://openai.com/index/introducing-openai/ https://openai.com/index/introducing-openai/ Of course, they could have been lying at that point, in order to gain interest I suppose , but they were pretty outspoken about that idea at least in the beginning.
    - freejazz 2y ago
      >Of course, they could have been lying at that point, in order to gain interest I suppose , but they were pretty outspoken about that idea at least in the beginning. I don't see how those notions contradict each other when it's all to get funding.
      - bloppe 2y ago
        That's not what investors want to hear, so it definitely wasn't to get funding
        freejazz 2y ago
        Yet... Or, to put it another way, you presume that investors want to hear how they will make money, as opposed to wanting to hear that OpenAI can 'talk the talk'
        kjkjadksj 2y ago
y1n0 2y ago
In some ways it resembles the drug industry. Heavy investment in what looks like a promising line of development only to have it flop like 4.5 with marginal improvements.
xnx 2y ago
> OpenAI is raising its prices to absurd levels When customers don't know how to differentiate on quality, they use price as a signal.
- diggan 2y ago
  Although I dislike the pricing, OpenAI do sit on some of the best models/processes. o1 Pro mode is a literal beast even compared to newer R1 and Sonnet 3.7. I'm not sure I'd call it 10x better (than R1 specifically) perhaps, but it certainly is better (and slower).
  - i_love_retros 2y ago
    A literal beast
radicalbyte 2y ago
> I guess they are trying to be the Apple of the AI world... They're looking more like Alta Vista.
bionhoward 2y ago
Anthropic didn’t build shit, it’s got the same closed output rules as ClosedAI and xAI and Perplexity and the Gemini API. Send them your precious questions and code and what do you get back? Output you with a prohibition era policy telling you not to use it to compete with their thing that does everything. That’s such a dumb deal, I immediately think people are dumb when I hear them mention using closed output AI services. Government protections for explicitly anticompetitive services? What a joke!
- timcobb 2y ago
  > I immediately think people are dumb when ... What a joke!
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bhouston 2y ago
  > Anthropic didn’t build shit, it’s got the same closed output rules as ClosedAI and xAI and Perplexity and the Gemini API Anthropic was founded by ex-OpenAI employees and they built an effective competitor to OpenAI as evidenced by their valuation, e.g. +$60B USD. If building a company with a +$60B valuation is considered shit, well, I guess I want to know what you built that is better?
  - bpt3 2y ago
    Using a company's valuation as a way to measure the effectiveness of the company or product is not a good idea. See anything related to NFTs as an example, or WeWork immediately sprang to mind as another one. Did Adam Neumann build anything noteworthy, or was he charismatic and connected enough to dupe many high net worth individuals and investment firms?
root_axis 2y ago
It also seems OpenAI is struggling to scale. I'm a premium subscriber and the site is totally unusable for multiple hours every week. Now that Claude has web search I may switch away from OpenAI permanently.
- infecto 2y ago
  Hate to burst your bubble but Anthropic has vastly tighter usage limits and is down much more often.
  - root_axis 2y ago
    Good to know. I guess since OpenAI is my primary driver I haven't had a chance to experience anthropic downtime.
    - infecto 2y ago
      It is not only the downtime but they have much more restrictive chat usage limits. That coupled with historically not having enough GPUs to service load has made it sometimes difficult to use. On that last point, it has gotten better in recent weeks.
- bhouston 2y ago
  This is also happening to Anthropic. The adoption of AI is accelerating right now, or at least token usage is accelerating is with agentic workflows coming on online.
tw1984 2y ago
> I guess they are trying to be the Apple of the AI world... iOS and MacOS are apple's moat, OpenAI has Altman's big mouth and all those nonsense from that big mouth.
jjulius 2y ago
... worry?
infecto 2y ago
> OpenAI is raising its prices to absurd levels When did they raise prices? I don't recall them ever raising prices. > That said, I expect protectionist policies will be enabled by the US government to protect them and also X.AI/Grok from foreign competition, in particular Chinese People love to say this but its hard to imagine which American or European businesses would be actively using models that are being run and hosted within mainland China. The risks are too great. Protectionist policies can be entirely ignored.
- bhouston 2y ago
  > When did they raise prices? I don't recall them ever raising prices. I am referring to their new models having absurdly high prices. GPT-4.5 is $75/150 and o1 is $15/60, whereas GPT-4o is $2.5/10. > models that are being run and hosted within mainland China. The models are open source so one can run them locally.
  - infecto 2y ago
    > I am referring to their new models having absurdly high prices. GPT-4.5 is $75/150 and o1 is $15/60, whereas GPT-4o is $2.5/10. That is a new product not a price increase. > The models are open source so one can run them locally. Again, not sure how any policies will stop opensource code from being run. At any rate those models still don't compare to O1 Pro and the full tool suite.
    - bhouston 2y ago
      > Again, not sure how any policies will stop opensource code from being run. There is already a bill in circulation that would ban the "import" of Chinese artificial intelligence technology and you can be sure that this means you won't be able to download the DeepSeek app or download its model: https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-introduces-legislation-to-decouple-american-ai-development-from-communist-china/ https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-introduces-legislation-... https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/deepseek-users-could-face-million-104352160.html https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/deepseek-users-could-face-... The stated penalties are up to "20 years in prison and a $100 million fine." This bill likely is an early one but this is the direction that many want to head in.
olalonde 2y ago
Worried? Their mission is to make sure that AI benefits all of humanity. Surely they must be thrilled that there is a ton of competition undercutting their prices and eating their market share. I bet Sam Altman is popping champagne as we speak. > We are building safe and beneficial AGI, but will also consider our mission fulfilled if our work aids others to achieve this outcome. > Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans—benefits all of humanity. Source: https://openai.com/about/ https://openai.com/about/

JesseTG 2y ago

Are there specific policies that come to mind?

danans 2y ago
The most obvious one being proposed is banning Chinese models from the US (like China bans Google, etc). At the extreme end, some members of the administration has already floated ideas like prosecuting users who download Chinese models.
- JesseTG 2y ago
  How would that even be enforced?

diggan 2y ago

> worry about the viability of OpenAI in particular [...] they also have the threat of OpenSource models It's a real shame OpenAI didn't succeed with their core and most fundamental mission of being open and improving humanity as a whole, where new FOSS models would have been seen as a success, not as a competitor or threat. We're all worse off because of it.

aiono 2y ago
> It's a real shame OpenAI didn't succeed with their core and most fundamental mission of being open and improving humanity as a whole You frame it like they sincerely had this mission at all. Which I doubt seriously. Why would anyone who funded them have such aim?
- diggan 2y ago
  Well, I mean, if we take what they themselves said (at the time) as truth, then that was their sincere mission: > OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact. https://openai.com/index/introducing-openai/ https://openai.com/index/introducing-openai/ Of course, they could have been lying at that point, in order to gain interest I suppose , but they were pretty outspoken about that idea at least in the beginning.
  - freejazz 2y ago
    >Of course, they could have been lying at that point, in order to gain interest I suppose , but they were pretty outspoken about that idea at least in the beginning. I don't see how those notions contradict each other when it's all to get funding.
    - bloppe 2y ago
      That's not what investors want to hear, so it definitely wasn't to get funding
      - freejazz 2y ago
        Yet... Or, to put it another way, you presume that investors want to hear how they will make money, as opposed to wanting to hear that OpenAI can 'talk the talk'
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago

y1n0 2y ago

In some ways it resembles the drug industry. Heavy investment in what looks like a promising line of development only to have it flop like 4.5 with marginal improvements.

xnx 2y ago

> OpenAI is raising its prices to absurd levels When customers don't know how to differentiate on quality, they use price as a signal.

diggan 2y ago
Although I dislike the pricing, OpenAI do sit on some of the best models/processes. o1 Pro mode is a literal beast even compared to newer R1 and Sonnet 3.7. I'm not sure I'd call it 10x better (than R1 specifically) perhaps, but it certainly is better (and slower).
- i_love_retros 2y ago
  A literal beast

radicalbyte 2y ago

> I guess they are trying to be the Apple of the AI world... They're looking more like Alta Vista.

bionhoward 2y ago

Anthropic didn’t build shit, it’s got the same closed output rules as ClosedAI and xAI and Perplexity and the Gemini API. Send them your precious questions and code and what do you get back? Output you with a prohibition era policy telling you not to use it to compete with their thing that does everything. That’s such a dumb deal, I immediately think people are dumb when I hear them mention using closed output AI services. Government protections for explicitly anticompetitive services? What a joke!

timcobb 2y ago
> I immediately think people are dumb when ... What a joke!
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bhouston 2y ago
> Anthropic didn’t build shit, it’s got the same closed output rules as ClosedAI and xAI and Perplexity and the Gemini API Anthropic was founded by ex-OpenAI employees and they built an effective competitor to OpenAI as evidenced by their valuation, e.g. +$60B USD. If building a company with a +$60B valuation is considered shit, well, I guess I want to know what you built that is better?
- bpt3 2y ago
  Using a company's valuation as a way to measure the effectiveness of the company or product is not a good idea. See anything related to NFTs as an example, or WeWork immediately sprang to mind as another one. Did Adam Neumann build anything noteworthy, or was he charismatic and connected enough to dupe many high net worth individuals and investment firms?

root_axis 2y ago

It also seems OpenAI is struggling to scale. I'm a premium subscriber and the site is totally unusable for multiple hours every week. Now that Claude has web search I may switch away from OpenAI permanently.

infecto 2y ago
Hate to burst your bubble but Anthropic has vastly tighter usage limits and is down much more often.
- root_axis 2y ago
  Good to know. I guess since OpenAI is my primary driver I haven't had a chance to experience anthropic downtime.
  - infecto 2y ago
    It is not only the downtime but they have much more restrictive chat usage limits. That coupled with historically not having enough GPUs to service load has made it sometimes difficult to use. On that last point, it has gotten better in recent weeks.
bhouston 2y ago
This is also happening to Anthropic. The adoption of AI is accelerating right now, or at least token usage is accelerating is with agentic workflows coming on online.

tw1984 2y ago

> I guess they are trying to be the Apple of the AI world... iOS and MacOS are apple's moat, OpenAI has Altman's big mouth and all those nonsense from that big mouth.

jjulius 2y ago

... worry?

infecto 2y ago

> OpenAI is raising its prices to absurd levels When did they raise prices? I don't recall them ever raising prices. > That said, I expect protectionist policies will be enabled by the US government to protect them and also X.AI/Grok from foreign competition, in particular Chinese People love to say this but its hard to imagine which American or European businesses would be actively using models that are being run and hosted within mainland China. The risks are too great. Protectionist policies can be entirely ignored.

bhouston 2y ago
> When did they raise prices? I don't recall them ever raising prices. I am referring to their new models having absurdly high prices. GPT-4.5 is $75/150 and o1 is $15/60, whereas GPT-4o is $2.5/10. > models that are being run and hosted within mainland China. The models are open source so one can run them locally.
- infecto 2y ago
  > I am referring to their new models having absurdly high prices. GPT-4.5 is $75/150 and o1 is $15/60, whereas GPT-4o is $2.5/10. That is a new product not a price increase. > The models are open source so one can run them locally. Again, not sure how any policies will stop opensource code from being run. At any rate those models still don't compare to O1 Pro and the full tool suite.
  - bhouston 2y ago
    > Again, not sure how any policies will stop opensource code from being run. There is already a bill in circulation that would ban the "import" of Chinese artificial intelligence technology and you can be sure that this means you won't be able to download the DeepSeek app or download its model: https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-introduces-legislation-to-decouple-american-ai-development-from-communist-china/ https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-introduces-legislation-... https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/deepseek-users-could-face-million-104352160.html https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/deepseek-users-could-face-... The stated penalties are up to "20 years in prison and a $100 million fine." This bill likely is an early one but this is the direction that many want to head in.

olalonde 2y ago

Worried? Their mission is to make sure that AI benefits all of humanity. Surely they must be thrilled that there is a ton of competition undercutting their prices and eating their market share. I bet Sam Altman is popping champagne as we speak. > We are building safe and beneficial AGI, but will also consider our mission fulfilled if our work aids others to achieve this outcome. > Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans—benefits all of humanity. Source: https://openai.com/about/ https://openai.com/about/