Let's pull all this into an undeniable conclusion: AI is based on massively subsidizing users' costs.

AI is based on massively subsidizing users’ costs. Once those subsidies end, what’s left are costs, not profits. Play that any way you like, but massive subsidies are not sustainable, though they generate a temporary illusion of viability that can be exploited by those selling a fantasy of future profitability to credulous investors and enterprises.

Left unsaid is a lot of money is being gambled on the illusion that subsidies are sustainable. They’re not. Enterprises don’t have profits, they have costs.

  • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29·
    9 days ago

    As Cory Doctorow put recently, selling $40 for $1 is a great way to generate demand but not a great way to stay in business.

    Once AI stops getting subsidized, the house of cards topples immediately

  • Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    10 days ago

    At the end of the day the AI war is a production war, and China already won. Right now they’re just pacing the field and waiting for US companies to over extend themselves. The extra time also allows them to lay in place more efficiency of their own.

    • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      4·
      9 days ago

      Don’t worry, the US government will step in and make it illegal to use Chinese models for “national security” reasons.

  • wulrus@lemmy.world
    7·
    9 days ago

    An important point is missing, and the headline is misleading: The flagship models are unaffordable.

    More energy efficient models with (even) less accurate results are a fraction of wage costs. So they would be very affordable to give an existing worker an extra tool. Just no reason for widespread use as long as the “subsidised” ones are available well under cost.

    Whether this extra tool does more harm or more good is a different question; due to the hype of using it everywhere for everything, the former is often true.

    I’m sure that, in theory, are careful and considerate use can be helpful. For example, as a coding agent, when I give it a simple task like I would a junior dev, and I’d check everything anyway. Things like adding a field to a form and applying it to UI, middleware, database, automated tests first etc.

  • brianary@lemmy.zip
    3·
    9 days ago

    There is no way to make solving all of your problems with brute force economically viable.