3 ms·

People said the same thing 30 years ago about the internet. I’m spending $400/mo on AI subscriptions at this point. Probably the best money I spend.

malfist 9mo ago
And the people who bought a lot of shovels during the gold rush thought they were making the smartest money move
- red-iron-pine 9mo ago
  some of them did make it big, and towns and building are named after them but lots of folks were broke as hell and miserable
  - m4rtink 9mo ago
    or dead
- Spooky23 9mo ago
  Dude, I'm getting a shovel factory for practically nothing. I'm easily realizing 5x value on that investment. I'd say for an estate that I am the executor of, it probably saved me $50k in legal fees and other expenses because it helped me analyze a novel problem and organize it ask the right questions of counsel. Another scenario i had to deal with i needed a mobile app to do something very specific for a few weeks. I specced out a very narrowly useful iphone application, built it out on the train from DC to NYC, and had it working to my satisfaction the next day. Is it production code ready for primetime? Absolutely not. But I got capability to do what I needed super quickly that my skill level is no longer up to the task to accomplish! IMO, these things let you make power tools, but your ability to get value is capped by your ability to ask the right questions. In the enterprise, they are going to kill lots of stupid legacy software that doesn't add alot of value, but adds alot of cost.
  - keyringlight 9mo ago
    I'd wonder how much that scales up though for the benefit of the companies that are each investing hundreds of billions and hope to see a net return. How many developers like you (presumably less of you seeing as each is more productive) or enterprises you work for paying fees (along with slimming down legacy costs paid to someone) does it take to get up in the 12 digit range?
    - Spooky23 9mo ago
      No idea, and not my problem. I’m surprised I’ve been downvoted so much in these comments. I’m not saying OpenAI et al is a good company or good financial scenario, or good investment. The technology is amazingly powerful. Full stop. The constraint that drives cost is technical — semiconductor prices. Semiconductors are manufactured commodities over time, those costs will drop over time. The Sun workstation I bought for $40k in 1999 would get smoked by a raspberry pi for $40. Even if everyone put their pencils down and stopped working on this stuff, you’d get a lot of value from the open source(-ish) models available today. Worst case scenario, LLMs are like Excel. Little computer programs will be available to anyone to do what they need done. Excel alone changed the world in many ways.
  - foobarchu 9mo ago
    The owner of the metaphorical shovel factory is the company you pay for access to a model. You have a steady supply of shovels.
blibble 9mo ago
that $400/month is essentially the introductory price, subsided in an attempt to grab market share that $400 will go up by at least a factor of 10 once the bubble pops would you be prepared to pay $4000/month?
- Spooky23 9mo ago
  Nah, I'll move much of it locally when it becomes cost justified to do so. I doubt that the exponential cost explosion day is coming. When the bubble pops, the bankruptcies of many of the players will push the costs down. US policy has provided a powerful incentive for Chinese players to do what Google has done and have a lower cost delivery model anyway.
  - blibble 9mo ago
    it's not exponential, it's linear > the bankruptcies of many of the players will push the costs down the running costs don't disappear because people go broke
    - Spooky23 9mo ago
      Your words bro. 10x isn’t linear. The cost iceberg with this stuff isn’t electricity, it’s the capital. Other than Google and Facebook, the big hype players can’t produce the growth required to support the valuations. That’s why the OpenAI people started fishing for .gov backstops. The play is get the government to pay and switch out whatever Nvidia stuff they have now with something more efficient in a few years.
  - brewdad 9mo ago
    It's the dot com bubble all over again. When you are losing money on every transaction you can't make it up on volume.

malfist 9mo ago

And the people who bought a lot of shovels during the gold rush thought they were making the smartest money move

red-iron-pine 9mo ago
some of them did make it big, and towns and building are named after them but lots of folks were broke as hell and miserable
- m4rtink 9mo ago
  or dead
Spooky23 9mo ago
Dude, I'm getting a shovel factory for practically nothing. I'm easily realizing 5x value on that investment. I'd say for an estate that I am the executor of, it probably saved me $50k in legal fees and other expenses because it helped me analyze a novel problem and organize it ask the right questions of counsel. Another scenario i had to deal with i needed a mobile app to do something very specific for a few weeks. I specced out a very narrowly useful iphone application, built it out on the train from DC to NYC, and had it working to my satisfaction the next day. Is it production code ready for primetime? Absolutely not. But I got capability to do what I needed super quickly that my skill level is no longer up to the task to accomplish! IMO, these things let you make power tools, but your ability to get value is capped by your ability to ask the right questions. In the enterprise, they are going to kill lots of stupid legacy software that doesn't add alot of value, but adds alot of cost.
- keyringlight 9mo ago
  I'd wonder how much that scales up though for the benefit of the companies that are each investing hundreds of billions and hope to see a net return. How many developers like you (presumably less of you seeing as each is more productive) or enterprises you work for paying fees (along with slimming down legacy costs paid to someone) does it take to get up in the 12 digit range?
  - Spooky23 9mo ago
    No idea, and not my problem. I’m surprised I’ve been downvoted so much in these comments. I’m not saying OpenAI et al is a good company or good financial scenario, or good investment. The technology is amazingly powerful. Full stop. The constraint that drives cost is technical — semiconductor prices. Semiconductors are manufactured commodities over time, those costs will drop over time. The Sun workstation I bought for $40k in 1999 would get smoked by a raspberry pi for $40. Even if everyone put their pencils down and stopped working on this stuff, you’d get a lot of value from the open source(-ish) models available today. Worst case scenario, LLMs are like Excel. Little computer programs will be available to anyone to do what they need done. Excel alone changed the world in many ways.
- foobarchu 9mo ago
  The owner of the metaphorical shovel factory is the company you pay for access to a model. You have a steady supply of shovels.

blibble 9mo ago

that $400/month is essentially the introductory price, subsided in an attempt to grab market share that $400 will go up by at least a factor of 10 once the bubble pops would you be prepared to pay $4000/month?

Spooky23 9mo ago
Nah, I'll move much of it locally when it becomes cost justified to do so. I doubt that the exponential cost explosion day is coming. When the bubble pops, the bankruptcies of many of the players will push the costs down. US policy has provided a powerful incentive for Chinese players to do what Google has done and have a lower cost delivery model anyway.
- blibble 9mo ago
  it's not exponential, it's linear > the bankruptcies of many of the players will push the costs down the running costs don't disappear because people go broke
  - Spooky23 9mo ago
    Your words bro. 10x isn’t linear. The cost iceberg with this stuff isn’t electricity, it’s the capital. Other than Google and Facebook, the big hype players can’t produce the growth required to support the valuations. That’s why the OpenAI people started fishing for .gov backstops. The play is get the government to pay and switch out whatever Nvidia stuff they have now with something more efficient in a few years.
- brewdad 9mo ago
  It's the dot com bubble all over again. When you are losing money on every transaction you can't make it up on volume.