[boelboel]

Isn't this akin to saying Big Pharma companies could easily make money if they just stopped doing expensive research? The massive R&D spend is the core of the business plan; it's the only reason they can demand high prices in the first place. Once OpenAI stops spending billions on training, their pricing power vanishes because users will just migrate to Anthropic or whoever releases the next frontier model. Would imply there'd be space for only one to outlast them all in some sort of war of attrition (perhaps similar to silicon industry).

[kimetime]

Big Pharma does seem like a good comparison for frontier lab business model. Doesnt really have the patent protection or distinct diseases pharma does, Wonder if labs start more heavily branding “specialties” instead of general capabilities to develop some differentiation