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0 pointslowsong2mo ago0 comments

> Democratizing is defined as "the process of making technology, information, or power accessible, available, or appealing to everyone, rather than just experts or elites."

Your definition only supports my point. The transfer of skill from something you learn to something you pay to do is the exact and complete opposite of your stated definition. It turns the activity from something that requires you to learn it to one that only those that can afford to pay can do.

It is quite literally making this technology, information, and power available to only the elite.

> Uhhh. Maybe you don't know any AI investors, but the payout is coming NOW.

What payout? Zero AI companies are profitable. If you're invested in one of these companies you could be a billionaire on paper, but until it's liquid it's meaningless. There's plenty of investors who stand to make a lot of money if these big companies exit, but there's no guarantee that will happen.

The only people making money at the moment are either taking cash salaries from AI labs or speculating on Nvidia stock. Neither of which have much do with the tech itself and everything to do with the hype.

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5 comments · 1 top-level

csallen2mo ago· 4 in thread

> It is quite literally making this technology, information, and power available to only the elite.

I don't know what to say to you. More people are coding now with AI than ever coded before. If your argument was true, then that would just mean that there are more elites than ever. Obviously that's not what's happening.

> What payout? Zero AI companies are profitable.

Because they're reinvesting profits into continued R&D, not because their current products are unprofitable. You're failing to understand basic high-growth business models.

> If you're invested in one of these companies you could be a billionaire on paper, but until it's liquid it's meaningless.

Plenty of AI companies have exited, and plenty of other AI companies offer tender offers where shareholders have been able to sell their shares to new investors. Again, it sounds like you just aren't really educated on what's happening. Plenty of people are millionaires in real life, not just on paper. You're massively incorrect about the payout landscape that investors are considering.

> The only people making money at the moment are either taking cash salaries from AI labs or speculating on Nvidia stock.

No, founders, early-stage investors, and employees with stock have cashed out in many cases. Again, it just feels like you're not aware of what's happening on the ground.

> Neither of which have much do with the tech itself and everything to do with the hype.

That's a very different argument. If you want to say that the investment is unsound, then fine, that's your opinion, but trying to say that investors have no appetite because they have to wait 10 to 15 years for a payout is incredibly incorrect.

lowsongOP2mo ago

> I don't know what to say to you. More people are coding now with AI than ever coded before. If your argument was true, then that would just mean that there are more elites than ever. Obviously that's not what's happening.

I don't know how I can explain this any more clearly.

If you need AI to create software, and the cost of AI is $200/month, then only people who can afford $200/month can create software.

Costs will increase. The current cost is substituted by investor funding. Sell at a loss to get people hooked on the product and then raise the price to make money, a "high-growth business model" as you say.

The cost to make a competitor to Anthropic or OpenAI is tens or hundreds of billions of dollars upfront. There will be few competitors and minimal market pressure to reduce prices, even if the unit costs of inference are low.

$200/month is already out of reach of the majority of the population. Increases from here means only a small percentage of the richest people can afford it.

I don't know what definition of "elite" you're using but, "technology limited so that only a small percentage of the population can afford it" is... an elite group.

This is fun and all, but I think we've reached the end of the productive discussion to be had and I don't have much more to say. Charitably, we're leaving in completely different realities. I just hope when the bubble pops the fall isn't too hard for you.

csallen2mo ago

> I don't know how I can explain this any more clearly. If you need AI to create software, and the cost of AI is $200/month, then only people who can afford $200/month can create software.

Your entire hypothetical is based on "ifs" that aren't true. Nothing in this sentence is true. You don't need AI to create software, the cost of AI development is much less than $200/month on average, and many more people can afford AI dev than programming bootcamps or classes or degrees.

> Costs will increase. The current cost is substituted by investor funding. Sell at a loss to get people hooked on the product and then raise the price to make money, a "high-growth business model" as you say.

Inference is already profitable at current pricing. Most funding goes toward R&D for new model training, not inference.

Also, inference costs dropped over 280x between Nov 2022 and Oct 2024. Inference will continue to get cheaper as we develop more specialized hardware and efficient models.

This is not Uber, subsidizing the cost of human drivers. This is real tech, chips and servers and software. Costs fall over time, not rise. Innovation does not go backwards.

baggy_trough2mo ago

> $200/month is already out of reach of the majority of the population. Increases from here means only a small percentage of the richest people can afford it.

This is an absurd claim. There are many things the majority of the population spends money on that cost more than this.

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duggan2mo ago

> $200/month is already out of reach of the majority of the population.

1. You can build small applications with the $20/month sub, much more with the $100/month. Competition and technology improvements will inevitably improve the price to value ratio.

2. Cable sports subscriptions are in a similar price range. Expensive, but not exclusive to “the elites”.

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5 comments · 1 top-level

csallen2mo ago· 4 in thread

> It is quite literally making this technology, information, and power available to only the elite.

> What payout? Zero AI companies are profitable.

Because they're reinvesting profits into continued R&D, not because their current products are unprofitable. You're failing to understand basic high-growth business models.

> If you're invested in one of these companies you could be a billionaire on paper, but until it's liquid it's meaningless.

> The only people making money at the moment are either taking cash salaries from AI labs or speculating on Nvidia stock.

No, founders, early-stage investors, and employees with stock have cashed out in many cases. Again, it just feels like you're not aware of what's happening on the ground.

> Neither of which have much do with the tech itself and everything to do with the hype.

lowsongOP2mo ago

I don't know how I can explain this any more clearly.

If you need AI to create software, and the cost of AI is $200/month, then only people who can afford $200/month can create software.

$200/month is already out of reach of the majority of the population. Increases from here means only a small percentage of the richest people can afford it.

I don't know what definition of "elite" you're using but, "technology limited so that only a small percentage of the population can afford it" is... an elite group.

csallen2mo ago

> I don't know how I can explain this any more clearly. If you need AI to create software, and the cost of AI is $200/month, then only people who can afford $200/month can create software.

Inference is already profitable at current pricing. Most funding goes toward R&D for new model training, not inference.

Also, inference costs dropped over 280x between Nov 2022 and Oct 2024. Inference will continue to get cheaper as we develop more specialized hardware and efficient models.

This is not Uber, subsidizing the cost of human drivers. This is real tech, chips and servers and software. Costs fall over time, not rise. Innovation does not go backwards.

baggy_trough2mo ago

> $200/month is already out of reach of the majority of the population. Increases from here means only a small percentage of the richest people can afford it.

This is an absurd claim. There are many things the majority of the population spends money on that cost more than this.

1 more reply

duggan2mo ago

> $200/month is already out of reach of the majority of the population.

1. You can build small applications with the $20/month sub, much more with the $100/month. Competition and technology improvements will inevitably improve the price to value ratio.

2. Cable sports subscriptions are in a similar price range. Expensive, but not exclusive to “the elites”.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse