3 ms·

I don't have a crystal ball, but based on similar historical scenarios, I think that one or two of these companies will win--probably because of some unique app

I don't have a crystal ball, but based on similar historical scenarios, I think that one or two of these companies will win--probably because of some unique application, delivery or trade secret that will drive 80% of their revenue. Consider Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. It's still early days...

com2kid 4mo ago
So long as Chinese labs keep writing white papers, trade secrets aren't going to win the day. Having growth up in the 90s, it is weird seeing companies share their technology secrets publicly.
- dofm 4mo ago
  Wandering around pretending to be researchers who are only just figuring out how to make money is, for the short term, an incredibly good way to attract a load of naïve money; not all sharks are smart. And it does, nowadays, give you a bit of a veneer of mere curiosity when you're being accused of massive theft.
- mike_hearn 4mo ago
  The papers are often missing many critical details.
CuriouslyC 4mo ago
The US govt is going to ban foreign models and foreign providers, and frontier labs are still cooked, because US companies will RLwash Chinese models to try and get in on the captive market. The frontier labs have already lost the war for coding, their next play is custom models for specific domains... Anthropic Galen for biomedical research, Anthropic Locke for legal analysis, etc, and you won't see _ANY_ intermediate work on the model, you will put in query, maybe get some questions fired back during work, and get a "final report." Eventually the frontier labs will try to cut out the middle man once these models prove themselves and start doing partnerships with big firms in the domains, so they can take a % of the profits in perpetuity rather than just taking a one time payment. For example, after Anthropic Galen, they'll do a partnership with Pfizer to generate Ozempic-Superjacked and take 20% royalties on global sales.
- Analemma_ 4mo ago
  > The frontier labs have already lost the war for coding You are way too deep in the HN bubble.
  - CuriouslyC 4mo ago
    I'm looking at how market/human forces are going to make the game play out when extended to its logical conclusion, not the score on the scoreboard RIGHT now.
- hackingonempty 4mo ago
  > The US govt is going to ban foreign models The people have a right to make and use whatever models they want, protected by the constitution. At a minimum, the models are described in research papers that are unquestionably protected speech. Skilled devs turn those into programs, also protected speech.
  - tmpz22 4mo ago
    Yes our passionate defense of Academia will surely survive Techno Oligarchs desire for a 20th vacation home
  - giantrobot 4mo ago
    The current administration has repeatedly demonstrated they do not feel constrained by laws or the Constitution.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4mo ago
    How could Trump ban tiktok then? And Fable for that matter. Maybe you're somehow legally allowed to distribute and download the weights, but most of us can't run GLM 5.2 at home.
    - verdverm 4mo ago
      You won't need a frontier size model for most tasks before long. Qwen 3.6 (small) punches way above its weight. I run it at home @8bit on an OEM Spark
sowbug 4mo ago
We're seeing the first 20 years of the dot-com cycle, but compressed into two years, and trying hard not to fall into the tar pit of ad-supported services.
dualvariable 4mo ago
I'd guess Anthropic will probably win, and LLMs will probably still be with us and be much better in 10 years time. But next year we could be in the middle of a massive $600B/yr capital-spending bubble deflating hard with unemployment accelerating towards 10% (or higher). The internet never failed, but the telcom/dotcom collapse still happened in 2001.
kajman 4mo ago
I'm sure investors thought one or two of the ISPs laying all that fiber would be collecting fat rents on them until the sun burnt out. I'm glad they got so much in the ground before there was a reckoning. I hope this industry ships more very expensive models, ASAP.

com2kid 4mo ago

So long as Chinese labs keep writing white papers, trade secrets aren't going to win the day. Having growth up in the 90s, it is weird seeing companies share their technology secrets publicly.

dofm 4mo ago
Wandering around pretending to be researchers who are only just figuring out how to make money is, for the short term, an incredibly good way to attract a load of naïve money; not all sharks are smart. And it does, nowadays, give you a bit of a veneer of mere curiosity when you're being accused of massive theft.
mike_hearn 4mo ago
The papers are often missing many critical details.

CuriouslyC 4mo ago

The US govt is going to ban foreign models and foreign providers, and frontier labs are still cooked, because US companies will RLwash Chinese models to try and get in on the captive market. The frontier labs have already lost the war for coding, their next play is custom models for specific domains... Anthropic Galen for biomedical research, Anthropic Locke for legal analysis, etc, and you won't see _ANY_ intermediate work on the model, you will put in query, maybe get some questions fired back during work, and get a "final report." Eventually the frontier labs will try to cut out the middle man once these models prove themselves and start doing partnerships with big firms in the domains, so they can take a % of the profits in perpetuity rather than just taking a one time payment. For example, after Anthropic Galen, they'll do a partnership with Pfizer to generate Ozempic-Superjacked and take 20% royalties on global sales.

Analemma_ 4mo ago
> The frontier labs have already lost the war for coding You are way too deep in the HN bubble.
- CuriouslyC 4mo ago
  I'm looking at how market/human forces are going to make the game play out when extended to its logical conclusion, not the score on the scoreboard RIGHT now.
hackingonempty 4mo ago
> The US govt is going to ban foreign models The people have a right to make and use whatever models they want, protected by the constitution. At a minimum, the models are described in research papers that are unquestionably protected speech. Skilled devs turn those into programs, also protected speech.
- tmpz22 4mo ago
  Yes our passionate defense of Academia will surely survive Techno Oligarchs desire for a 20th vacation home
- giantrobot 4mo ago
  The current administration has repeatedly demonstrated they do not feel constrained by laws or the Constitution.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4mo ago
  How could Trump ban tiktok then? And Fable for that matter. Maybe you're somehow legally allowed to distribute and download the weights, but most of us can't run GLM 5.2 at home.
  - verdverm 4mo ago
    You won't need a frontier size model for most tasks before long. Qwen 3.6 (small) punches way above its weight. I run it at home @8bit on an OEM Spark

sowbug 4mo ago

We're seeing the first 20 years of the dot-com cycle, but compressed into two years, and trying hard not to fall into the tar pit of ad-supported services.

dualvariable 4mo ago

I'd guess Anthropic will probably win, and LLMs will probably still be with us and be much better in 10 years time. But next year we could be in the middle of a massive $600B/yr capital-spending bubble deflating hard with unemployment accelerating towards 10% (or higher). The internet never failed, but the telcom/dotcom collapse still happened in 2001.

kajman 4mo ago

I'm sure investors thought one or two of the ISPs laying all that fiber would be collecting fat rents on them until the sun burnt out. I'm glad they got so much in the ground before there was a reckoning. I hope this industry ships more very expensive models, ASAP.