Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by KaoruAoiShiho 1176 days ago
According to interviews OpenAI only released ChatGPT in advance of GPT4 because of paranoia that they would be supplanted by open versions and end up being irrelevant. Their fear is not unfounded as it-just-happened to them, with Dalle-2 and stablediffusion.
1 comments
kkielhofner 1176 days ago
OpenAI is well funded but again I'm reminded of open source. Way back when in 2008 the Linux Foundation (yes, consider the source) estimated[0] that Fedora 9 represented approximately $10.8B (2008 dollars) in cost if developed commercially/conventionally. I actually believe that (Debian as another example has over 50k packages). Meanwhile it has to be some multiple of that 15 years later.

OpenAI having a few billion or more to throw around seems like a lot. The combined rest of the world including supporting commercial entities (Stability AI and others = Red Hat, IBM, Intel, FB, Google, etc) and open source contributors have the equivalent of many times that.

On a long enough timeline the closed/proprietary approach cannot win.

[0] - https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/press-release/linux-fo...

link
pksebben 1175 days ago
We are aligned. I just wonder when we'll get to a stage where we can start producing value faster than the landlord types can charge rent on it.

I think this tech might actually represent an opportunity to break out of the systemic quagmire we've been in societally for so long - rotting institutions dictating access to information and entrenched powers accumulating for the sake of accumulation.

I want everyone to have a personal assistant who can help them learn whatever it is they want to learn, for free, at any time of day. We're so damn close.

link
staunton 1176 days ago
> On a long enough timeline the closed/proprietary approach cannot win.

Yes it can. The magic word is "regulation".

link