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Addendum to counterpoint: why haven't those SotA gen-AI companies become the most productive software companies on earth, and release better and cheaper competi

Addendum to counterpoint: why haven't those SotA gen-AI companies become the most productive software companies on earth, and release better and cheaper competitors to all currently popular software? People always gripe about the poor quality of software staples like Microsoft Office or GitHub or Slack. Why hasn't OpenAI or Anthropic released a superior office suite or code hosting platform or enterprise chat? It would be both a huge cash cow and the best possible advertising that AI-facilitated software development is truly the real deal 10x force multiplier they claim. If someone invents a special shovel that can magically identify ore deposits 100% of the time, they aren't going to sell it with the rest of the shovelmongers. They're going to keep it to themselves and actually mine gold.

plagiarist 8mo ago
They're still training up using all of our extensive feedback to improve software architecture. Maybe later this year.
ethbr1 8mo ago
Anthropic appears to have realized before OpenAI that code gen was an important enough market to specialize in. For now though, building smarter models / general integration tooling is a better us of model companies' capital. Once/if performance gains plateau, expect you'll see them pivot right quick to in-house software factories for easily cloneable, large TAM product spaces, then spin off those products if they're successful.
- MontyCarloHall 8mo ago
  100% agreed. When/if that pivot happens will be the sign that gen-AI is truly disrupting the software market in a profound way. "You're using the model wrong/you're not using the latest model" is an oft-repeated argument against AI skeptics. Nobody knows how to use the latest models better than their developers.
- pydry 8mo ago
  For the time being though, theyre going to build their in house software with electron because building native apps is hard.
hxugufjfjf 8mo ago
Because it’s not their business to sell a chat app? "Our company is the frontier lab for AI models, oh and btw we also offer SlackClone, sign up for enterprise please". Their job is selling shovels, really good, increasingly more expensive shovels that keep getting better, let others waste their time looking for gold.
- camdenreslink 8mo ago
  But they are marketing their AI as replacing all software engineers. Their CEO can’t stop saying it. According to them the cost of producing software is now just the cost of tokens to generate it. They have special knowledge to leverage AI to clone (and even improve) huge revenue businesses with high margin. If their claims about the abilities of LLMs are accurate it would be foolish to just leave that on the table. It would also prove the power of their LLM product as truly disruptive. It would be amazing marketing!
  - hattmall 8mo ago
    They care about money, they are making tons of investor money doing what they are doing, there's no incentive to pivot if it would just turn investor money into consumer money.
- chickenimprint 8mo ago
  Their business is making money. If they can build money printing machines, they're not going to refuse to use them because that's "not their business". Do you really think they would be out donating trillions of dollars to other companies out of the goodness of their hearts, instead of just bankrupting everyone in the software industry if they could?
  - signatoremo 8mo ago
    Huh? What kind of question is that? Who waste the opportunity to win the AI race to become another Jira vendor? Everything has the opportunity cost. Didn’t you already learn that?
Keyframe 8mo ago
Why hasn't OpenAI or Anthropic released a superior office suite or code hosting platform or enterprise chat? My guess is two-fold. One, they are specialized in AI. Two, building another anthropic is a big moat and they like to keep it big vs what you could build with it.
tayo42 8mo ago
Generating code isn't the bottleneck for selling software. Those apps aren't that bad, it's just internet people complaining about things like react. Imo "higher quality" isn't a way to sell software
Aerroon 8mo ago
Why aren't we in the year of the Linux desktop? It's free and arguably close enough, better, or as good as Windows. I think in the modern world people would absolutely sell the special shovel, because even if you have a better product that doesn't mean people are going to be using it. You need to have a much better product for a long time for that to happen. And being much better than the competition is hard.

plagiarist 8mo ago

They're still training up using all of our extensive feedback to improve software architecture. Maybe later this year.

ethbr1 8mo ago

Anthropic appears to have realized before OpenAI that code gen was an important enough market to specialize in. For now though, building smarter models / general integration tooling is a better us of model companies' capital. Once/if performance gains plateau, expect you'll see them pivot right quick to in-house software factories for easily cloneable, large TAM product spaces, then spin off those products if they're successful.

MontyCarloHall 8mo ago
100% agreed. When/if that pivot happens will be the sign that gen-AI is truly disrupting the software market in a profound way. "You're using the model wrong/you're not using the latest model" is an oft-repeated argument against AI skeptics. Nobody knows how to use the latest models better than their developers.
pydry 8mo ago
For the time being though, theyre going to build their in house software with electron because building native apps is hard.

hxugufjfjf 8mo ago

Because it’s not their business to sell a chat app? "Our company is the frontier lab for AI models, oh and btw we also offer SlackClone, sign up for enterprise please". Their job is selling shovels, really good, increasingly more expensive shovels that keep getting better, let others waste their time looking for gold.

camdenreslink 8mo ago
But they are marketing their AI as replacing all software engineers. Their CEO can’t stop saying it. According to them the cost of producing software is now just the cost of tokens to generate it. They have special knowledge to leverage AI to clone (and even improve) huge revenue businesses with high margin. If their claims about the abilities of LLMs are accurate it would be foolish to just leave that on the table. It would also prove the power of their LLM product as truly disruptive. It would be amazing marketing!
- hattmall 8mo ago
  They care about money, they are making tons of investor money doing what they are doing, there's no incentive to pivot if it would just turn investor money into consumer money.
chickenimprint 8mo ago
Their business is making money. If they can build money printing machines, they're not going to refuse to use them because that's "not their business". Do you really think they would be out donating trillions of dollars to other companies out of the goodness of their hearts, instead of just bankrupting everyone in the software industry if they could?
- signatoremo 8mo ago
  Huh? What kind of question is that? Who waste the opportunity to win the AI race to become another Jira vendor? Everything has the opportunity cost. Didn’t you already learn that?

Keyframe 8mo ago

Why hasn't OpenAI or Anthropic released a superior office suite or code hosting platform or enterprise chat? My guess is two-fold. One, they are specialized in AI. Two, building another anthropic is a big moat and they like to keep it big vs what you could build with it.

tayo42 8mo ago

Generating code isn't the bottleneck for selling software. Those apps aren't that bad, it's just internet people complaining about things like react. Imo "higher quality" isn't a way to sell software

Aerroon 8mo ago

Why aren't we in the year of the Linux desktop? It's free and arguably close enough, better, or as good as Windows. I think in the modern world people would absolutely sell the special shovel, because even if you have a better product that doesn't mean people are going to be using it. You need to have a much better product for a long time for that to happen. And being much better than the competition is hard.