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0 pointsben_w2y ago0 comments

Hmm.

I wasn't convinced, but I did the maths and, well, looks like you're right:

Hiring people in to read and respond in a politically biased way to each person in the USA would take, let's say 2 messages per day for a month, so 60 messages per person, let's say 100 million actual voters you care about so 6 billion messages, let's say 15 seconds per response so 25 million hours, let's say you're hiring Kenyans because I happen to have the GDP/capita and workforce participation rate to hand, so it's about 2 USD/hour on average, so 50 million USD.

With GPT-4, and let's approximate each message as 100 input tokens and 100 output tokens, that's 0.1 * ($0.03 + $0.06) = $0.009, times the same 6e9 messages = 54 million USD.

So, yeah, looks like you're right.

3.5 is cheaper, but tends to be noticeable; from what I've been hearing (fast moving target and all that) the OSS LLMs tend to be 90% of the quality of 3.5.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

Faint2y ago· 1 in thread

I'd say GPT-4 can make much more elaborate arguments in 15s than humans can.

ben_wOP2y ago

Speed yes, but cost? Can it make better comments in 100 tokens input and output, than humans in 15 seconds?

(I still haven't used 4 properly, so possibly? And given the hypothetical situation under discussion, could it have if it had not been directed not to?)

pixl972y ago

Eh, only partially correct...

The battle for the future isn't attention, it's intimacy. LLMs will up the game from broadcast propaganda to individual relationships via digital medium. It will be a two way communication that profiles you and feeds your biases in a much more direct way than even the social media giants themselves have accomplished.

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