5 ms·

US labs must be sweating bullets. Not on tech side, but on finance. They have a pile of debt and VC expectations that count on vast future profitability

by Havoc 3mo ago

binary132 3mo ago
I don’t think the timing of Trump’s recent sabre-rattling at China is any coincidence
- program_whiz 3mo ago
  Yep, time to pay back those campaign contributions in the form of "chinese models embargo". USG has already shown more than willing to dabble in picking what AI companies can do what. Actually its interesting, I wonder if the recent freezes on Fable/Mythos and GPT 5.6 where actually prepping so that a "chinese model not allowed" play would be more pallatable / excusable. But then again, that's attributing 4d chess to an admin that has been making rookie mistakes.
  - jchook 3mo ago
    Have a strong feeling that Anthropic solicited the ban from Lutnick as part of their, “so powerful it’s a national security threat” marketing campaign. Pretty evident as they kicked it off with self-imposed limits (“0days on every OS”) etc, OpenAI didn’t get the same treatment, and the ban was conveniently lifted as soon as they needed to compete.
    - binary132 3mo ago
      It can be both — I’m sure the administration would like our stock market not to get ruined by foreign undermining of American AI research companies, and I’m equally sure Anthropic would like to achieve regulatory capture.
rektomatic 3mo ago
Maybe the whole windows/linux thing is an apt comparison? Linux is OS and arguably runs the internet yet windows is still a cash cow. The paid-for models are like windows, the OS models are like linux?
- lacedeconstruct 3mo ago
  Linux was not for a long time on the same level of windows though
- adam_arthur 3mo ago
  Completely different levels of stickiness. The OS runs everything; the LLM can be swapped in a second. (But yes, you will have to tweak prompts+tuning anytime you change models)
  - utilize1808 3mo ago
    Corporates aren't running Linux not because it's hard to switch. Corporates are sticking to MS because of compliance and admin costs.
    - adam_arthur 3mo ago
      Then it's hard to switch? It's irrelevant the reason why, the margin any business can take will be constrained by the cost to switch to a cheaper, good enough, competitor. You are saying it's difficult to switch due to compliance and admin issues. Ok! LLMs can be swapped easily and open weight models can be hosted to adhere to whatever legal, uptime requirements etc are needed trivially. The big cloud providers already host and resell open weight models. The two don't event compare
    - preg_match 3mo ago
      But corps are running Linux, in that sense that basically every serious web application is running on a Linux backend. Even if you use IaaS. Basically, companies that are "in the know" and develop software utilize linux as much as they reasonably can. Companies that aren't, don't, but do "use it" kind of transitively through their software. Where Linux does not hold is in Corporate Desktop IT. Mostly because of inertia of all things. MBAs need their Excel, and let's be honest. These people just... do not learn new tools. They certainly have the ability, but the culture is such that they just don't. So it's not even a choice really. No Windows = No Excel = No serious business person is okay with this. Maybe, maybe, if your company is mostly developers then you can swing desktop IT linux. But your IT department will fight you, yes they will. And HR will be pissed. And I sure hope your CEO is also a developer. If he's a business guy, well... boss baby needs his Excel. How's he gonna do anything without Excel.
fishfasell 3mo ago
They'll just lobby the government, feds will label them a security threat and ban them from corporate use. The American AI VC will breathe a huge sigh of relief and call it a day. Nothing says capitalism like writing laws to stop the competition needed to fuel innovation.
- milch 3mo ago
  With the Chinese models now being 3T too I don't think they have to. Speed/cost wise this already doesn't seem like a viable model. The biggest threat for the economy IMO is if they challenge the whole Nvidia/Datacenter infrastructure money side, which this pretty much doesn't. More likely they will ban running LLMs locally in some way
- Havoc 3mo ago
  It's a sound prediction on regulation, but I don't think that's enough. US is about 4% of world pop. And a lot of private use within those 4% will prioritize price. Still a huge market with disproportionate spending power but from what I can tell OAI and friends need the outcome to be world conquering on the scale of google in search - global domination. Sub 4% ain't gonna cut it even if it's a thick 4%
Quitschquat 3mo ago
Don't worry, we're at the stage where we lobby the government for "regulations".
jasondigitized 3mo ago
Considering Xi just said they are ALL IN on open AI, yeah, heavy sweating

US labs must be sweating bullets. Not on tech side, but on finance. They have a pile of debt and VC expectations that count on vast future profitability

by Havoc 3mo ago

US labs must be sweating bullets. Not on tech side, but on finance. They have a pile of debt and VC expectations that count on vast future profitability

binary132 3mo ago

I don’t think the timing of Trump’s recent sabre-rattling at China is any coincidence

program_whiz 3mo ago
Yep, time to pay back those campaign contributions in the form of "chinese models embargo". USG has already shown more than willing to dabble in picking what AI companies can do what. Actually its interesting, I wonder if the recent freezes on Fable/Mythos and GPT 5.6 where actually prepping so that a "chinese model not allowed" play would be more pallatable / excusable. But then again, that's attributing 4d chess to an admin that has been making rookie mistakes.
- jchook 3mo ago
  Have a strong feeling that Anthropic solicited the ban from Lutnick as part of their, “so powerful it’s a national security threat” marketing campaign. Pretty evident as they kicked it off with self-imposed limits (“0days on every OS”) etc, OpenAI didn’t get the same treatment, and the ban was conveniently lifted as soon as they needed to compete.
  - binary132 3mo ago
    It can be both — I’m sure the administration would like our stock market not to get ruined by foreign undermining of American AI research companies, and I’m equally sure Anthropic would like to achieve regulatory capture.

rektomatic 3mo ago

Maybe the whole windows/linux thing is an apt comparison? Linux is OS and arguably runs the internet yet windows is still a cash cow. The paid-for models are like windows, the OS models are like linux?

lacedeconstruct 3mo ago
Linux was not for a long time on the same level of windows though
adam_arthur 3mo ago
Completely different levels of stickiness. The OS runs everything; the LLM can be swapped in a second. (But yes, you will have to tweak prompts+tuning anytime you change models)
- utilize1808 3mo ago
  Corporates aren't running Linux not because it's hard to switch. Corporates are sticking to MS because of compliance and admin costs.
  - adam_arthur 3mo ago
    Then it's hard to switch? It's irrelevant the reason why, the margin any business can take will be constrained by the cost to switch to a cheaper, good enough, competitor. You are saying it's difficult to switch due to compliance and admin issues. Ok! LLMs can be swapped easily and open weight models can be hosted to adhere to whatever legal, uptime requirements etc are needed trivially. The big cloud providers already host and resell open weight models. The two don't event compare
  - preg_match 3mo ago
    But corps are running Linux, in that sense that basically every serious web application is running on a Linux backend. Even if you use IaaS. Basically, companies that are "in the know" and develop software utilize linux as much as they reasonably can. Companies that aren't, don't, but do "use it" kind of transitively through their software. Where Linux does not hold is in Corporate Desktop IT. Mostly because of inertia of all things. MBAs need their Excel, and let's be honest. These people just... do not learn new tools. They certainly have the ability, but the culture is such that they just don't. So it's not even a choice really. No Windows = No Excel = No serious business person is okay with this. Maybe, maybe, if your company is mostly developers then you can swing desktop IT linux. But your IT department will fight you, yes they will. And HR will be pissed. And I sure hope your CEO is also a developer. If he's a business guy, well... boss baby needs his Excel. How's he gonna do anything without Excel.

fishfasell 3mo ago

They'll just lobby the government, feds will label them a security threat and ban them from corporate use. The American AI VC will breathe a huge sigh of relief and call it a day. Nothing says capitalism like writing laws to stop the competition needed to fuel innovation.

milch 3mo ago
With the Chinese models now being 3T too I don't think they have to. Speed/cost wise this already doesn't seem like a viable model. The biggest threat for the economy IMO is if they challenge the whole Nvidia/Datacenter infrastructure money side, which this pretty much doesn't. More likely they will ban running LLMs locally in some way
Havoc 3mo ago
It's a sound prediction on regulation, but I don't think that's enough. US is about 4% of world pop. And a lot of private use within those 4% will prioritize price. Still a huge market with disproportionate spending power but from what I can tell OAI and friends need the outcome to be world conquering on the scale of google in search - global domination. Sub 4% ain't gonna cut it even if it's a thick 4%

Quitschquat 3mo ago

Don't worry, we're at the stage where we lobby the government for "regulations".

jasondigitized 3mo ago

Considering Xi just said they are ALL IN on open AI, yeah, heavy sweating