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Comment by thorum | Hacker News Reader

The OpenAI moat is private datasets, a sizable chunk of the best talent, proprietary discoveries (like whatever Q* is) that keep them ahead of everyone else, and lobbying advantages that will help them to survive future AI regulations. It doesn’t matter that much if you can build your own AI system with open source tech as long as OpenAI’s solutions are better and cheaper to use.

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The OpenAI moat is that most people have heard of ChatGPT, and not any of the hundreds of AI products out there

True, and a year ago very few of those people had heard of ChatGPT, so it's very possible that something new could come along in the same way.

You could've said the same thing about Google (specifically their AI efforts) 5-10 years ago, and what ended up happening is the majority of their best engineers left for other places like...OpenAI.

And you probably could have said the same thing about Google 25 years ago when altavista and yahoo were around. What ended up happening was a complete dominance on web search for Google. The end result is unknown but it does appear they have an advantage right now.

Google had a revolutionary search technology which they quickly learned how to monetize and it began printing money. OpenAI has competitive technology in a crowded field and they are currently burning through money, likely hundreds of millions every month. They are still a glorified tech demo in search of a profitable product.

I agree I don't know what will happen. But apart from PR (and arguably funding) OpenAI really doesn't seem special. I say this as someone who interviewed there and with competitors. And many people in the field have developed a distaste for OpenAI's management over the years to the point it's becoming a problem with recruiting.

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