Counterpoint: AI in its current form is democratizing and allowing exactly the not rich to be relatively more dangerous.
So yeah, the rich might use it to get richer. But so can everyone* else.
So yeah, the rich might use it to get richer. But so can everyone* else.
Which part exactly ? The part where everyone pays 20+ a month to a few megacorps or the part where we willingly upload all our thoughts to a central server ?
For my money (my actual money!) o3 is still the best model I’ve used. That is included in the $20 a month plan.
The only "limit" I have really with o3 is my patience -- it's a slow model for regular use. If I don't need its intelligence I'll use o4-mini or even 4o for speed, saving o3 for the prompts that really need it.
These days the only model I find I get rate-limited on frustratingly quickly is 4.5. It's clear OpenAI does not really want you using that one, despite the fact that's very good (and probably very expensive for them)! Pretty underrated imo.
I think you're overestimating what people use llms for. The only thing they're democratising is themselves
This is a weird conversation. At first you were concerned about prices and now you’re railing about the US Navy not using Chinese models. What’s your problem here?
Until you can run high quality models on affordable devices on your desk or in your hand the extent of the democratisation is much more limited than you might like.
Perhaps OSS will come to the rescue here.
(Aside: obviously free tiers are available but these are all hobbled in various ways: usage limits, data sharing/leakage, etc.)
If you prefer to be subject to the ownership class, I recommend being honest about why that is.
If AI proves useful enough to effect sustained savings for Big Tech to the degree that you're suggesting, then the flip side of that coin is that it's effectively ZIRP on steroids for startups. The successful businesses which come out of that will ultimately have human labor needs of their own. Job market continues to trend upwards, only with lower concentration and greater overall resulting economic value in the form of more products and services.
Or AI/robotics/etc. gets so good that eventually no one needs human labor, and every company trends toward just being a CEO + board + AI. In that world, unless we expect everyone and their grandma to become an entrepreneur, something to the effect of a UBI would be necessary to keep the world turning without major societal upheaval.
On the other hand, AI skeptics can plan to sit back and eat popcorn while they watch the bigcos suffer the consequences of their mistakes and yield ground to startups. Either way, AI will have been a democratizing force.
N'ah as long as the AIs the everyone else has access to are heavily censored and lobotomized to prevent wrong think, while governments and corporations will have access to the raw unbiased data.