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> win the AI race I keep seeing that term, but if it does not mean "AI arms race" or "AI surveillance race", what does it mean? Those are the only explanation

> win the AI race I keep seeing that term, but if it does not mean "AI arms race" or "AI surveillance race", what does it mean? Those are the only explanations that I have found, and neither is any race that I would like to see anyone win.

strange_quark 8mo ago
It’s a framing device to justify the money, the idea being the first company (to what?) will own the market.
totetsu 8mo ago
It’s a graft to keep people distracted and allow for positioning as we fall off the end of the fossil energy boom.
ekidd 8mo ago
A significant number of AI companies and investors are hoping to build a machine god. This is batshit insane, but I suppose it might be possible. Which wouldn't make it any more sane. But when they say, "Win the AI race," they mean, "Build the machine god first." Make of this what you will.
- FeteCommuniste 8mo ago
  On the edge of my seat waiting to see what hits us first, a massive economic collapse when the hype runs out, or the Torment Nexus.
  - reverius42 8mo ago
    It really seems like the market has locked in on one of those two things being a guaranteed outcome at this point.
bigstrat2003 8mo ago
Big tech businesses are convinced that there must be some profitable business model for AI, and are undeterred by the fact that none has yet been found. They want to be the first to get there, raking in that sweet sweet money (even though there's no evidence yet that there is money to be made here). It's industry-wide FOMO, nothing more.
- Nystik 8mo ago
  It will be genuinely interesting to see what happens first, the discovery of such a model, or the bubble bursting.
- hannasanarion 8mo ago
  People keep saying this but it's simply untrue. AI inference is profitable. Openai and Anthropic have 40-60% gross margins. If they stopped training and building out future capacity they would already be raking in cash. They're losing money now because they're making massive bets on future capacity needs. If those bets are wrong, they're going to be in very big trouble when demand levels off lower than expected. But that's not the same as demand being zero.
  - adgjlsfhk1 8mo ago
    those gross profit margins aren't that useful since training at fixed capacity is continually getting cheaper, so there's a treadmill effect where staying in business requires training new models constantly to not fall behind. If the big companies stop training models, they only have a year before someone else catches up with way less debt and puts them out of business.
    - HDThoreaun 8mo ago
      Only if training new models leads to better models. If the newly trained models are just a bit cheaper but not better most users wont switch. Then the entrenched labs can stop training so much and focus on profitable inference
      - kuschku 8mo ago
        If they really have 40-60% gross margins, as training costs go down, the newly trained models could offer the same product at half the price.
        HDThoreaun 8mo ago
atleastoptimal 8mo ago
Being too far ahead for competitors to catch up, similar to how google won browsers, amazon won distribution, etc

strange_quark 8mo ago

It’s a framing device to justify the money, the idea being the first company (to what?) will own the market.

totetsu 8mo ago

It’s a graft to keep people distracted and allow for positioning as we fall off the end of the fossil energy boom.

ekidd 8mo ago

A significant number of AI companies and investors are hoping to build a machine god. This is batshit insane, but I suppose it might be possible. Which wouldn't make it any more sane. But when they say, "Win the AI race," they mean, "Build the machine god first." Make of this what you will.

FeteCommuniste 8mo ago
On the edge of my seat waiting to see what hits us first, a massive economic collapse when the hype runs out, or the Torment Nexus.
- reverius42 8mo ago
  It really seems like the market has locked in on one of those two things being a guaranteed outcome at this point.

bigstrat2003 8mo ago

Big tech businesses are convinced that there must be some profitable business model for AI, and are undeterred by the fact that none has yet been found. They want to be the first to get there, raking in that sweet sweet money (even though there's no evidence yet that there is money to be made here). It's industry-wide FOMO, nothing more.

Nystik 8mo ago
It will be genuinely interesting to see what happens first, the discovery of such a model, or the bubble bursting.
hannasanarion 8mo ago
People keep saying this but it's simply untrue. AI inference is profitable. Openai and Anthropic have 40-60% gross margins. If they stopped training and building out future capacity they would already be raking in cash. They're losing money now because they're making massive bets on future capacity needs. If those bets are wrong, they're going to be in very big trouble when demand levels off lower than expected. But that's not the same as demand being zero.
- adgjlsfhk1 8mo ago
  those gross profit margins aren't that useful since training at fixed capacity is continually getting cheaper, so there's a treadmill effect where staying in business requires training new models constantly to not fall behind. If the big companies stop training models, they only have a year before someone else catches up with way less debt and puts them out of business.
  - HDThoreaun 8mo ago
    Only if training new models leads to better models. If the newly trained models are just a bit cheaper but not better most users wont switch. Then the entrenched labs can stop training so much and focus on profitable inference
    - kuschku 8mo ago
      If they really have 40-60% gross margins, as training costs go down, the newly trained models could offer the same product at half the price.
      - HDThoreaun 8mo ago

atleastoptimal 8mo ago

Being too far ahead for competitors to catch up, similar to how google won browsers, amazon won distribution, etc