[asdfman123]

To be more than a toy it needs to be profitable and have a moat.

OpenAI just implemented something (well) that was developed in other places.

LLMs are indeed very cool and maybe even revolutionary, but their main accomplishment was beating big tech to the punch.

[v4dok]

They didn't beat them because they are faster. They beat them because it was something big tech did not want to happen. The space you have for ads is severely limited and the fact that no moat exists means that you will need alternative ways to fund it (or skyrocket the ad costs).

I suspect that those who don't care about privacy or can't afford to pay, will be swarmed with AI-seo results from an ad-supported model, but people will FINALLLY have the choice to pay and avoid this ad-fest. And who knows, maybe when open-source catches up, it will even be affordable enough that ad-tech will shrink considerably.

[asdfman123]

> They beat them because it was something big tech did not want to happen

Yep. Google didn’t want a chatbot telling kids how to cook meth, so they weren’t in a hurry to release. Meanwhile, releasing a chatbot is one of the few cards a much smaller company like OpenAI can play.

[v4dok]

I dont know if you are sarcastic, but the solution to kids cooking meth is not hiding the recipe. Hiding knowledge is a sign of a problematic society, not "God's work"

[asdfman123]

This is mostly unrelated to the chatbot conversation, but hiding sensitive things from children is basic parenting as practiced in all cultures everywhere. The only difference is not everyone agrees on what’s sensitive content.

[mprovost]

Kodak invented the digital camera. Being first doesn't mean much. New competitors don't have anything inside the moat (their existing business) to protect and can move faster.