[MattDaEskimo]

How is it misleading if this would be the consumer's cost?

Eventually Codex's subscription subsidization will diminish to near-zero, like the rest of the providers.

It's extremely important that people understand how expensive these models currently are. Even $300k in raw API costs is alarming for the output.

[namenotrequired]

> How is it misleading if this would be the consumer's cost?

Because it does not say “equivalent of”, it literally says he spent money that he did not spend

[mathgeek]

This. If I go up to my boss and say “I spent $10000 but it only cost us $1000” then I spent $1000.

[stavros]

Depends on elasticity, if you could have easily sold that $1000 worth of product and made $10k, then you spent $10k.

[namenotrequired]

No. Then you missed the opportunity to make 9k.

[lbrito]

If anything it cost more than the title, because customer costs are wildly subsidized.

So yeah its misleading but in the other direction.

[overfeed]

Inference is highly marked up. Total costs including training may be subsidized (,in a sense since the AI companies are widely reported to not break even as yet)

[polski-g]

We know how expensive the (Chinese) models are to run, because there are a hundred inference providers selling them cheaply and competitively.

The money going to the American model companies is not going to their hosting costs.

[pama]

Peter shows the near-term future. Raw API consumer price cost is arbitrary. (The frontier labs can put a 100x markup to cover other operational expenses.) The true cost of inference with same-capability models keeps dropping at dizzying rates, especially at the data-center batch size. (Due to both NVidia hardware and algorithmic changes.) So the developments that Peter can achieve today with internal support from OpenAI will be doable by anyone in a few years without breaking the bank.

[vrganj]

But.... why? Like I read his thing on how he spends the tokens [0] and it sounds like satire.

He has agents write shitty code for features other agents think other people want, then has it reviewed by other agents in hopes of catching bugs that the first agent put there, then has some more agents try to find security bugs in the now double-agented code to make it triple-agented and at the end of the day, he spent a shitton of tokens, probably emitted enough carbon to heat our planet by another degree, and has a feature nobody really asked for that might or might not work.

He then has the sense of humor to call this grotesque process "incredibly lean".

What's the point in all of this? What problems is this solving? Who's benefiting?

[0] https://xcancel.com/steipete/status/2055405041843052792

[browningstreet]

I don’t use openclaw myself anymore, but this agonizing is thin and unbearable. He did a thing. People use the thing. He got paid for the thing. He iterates the thing. What’s hard to understand about this?

The morality issues about consumption climate impacts are not his alone, and are not unique by itself to his endeavor. Every company with an enterprise LLM agreement has a share, for instance.

[hansmayer]

> I don’t use openclaw myself anymore

Firstly, who TF would use that crap in the first place at all? Yeah, he did some crap he got paid for. So did the people who created the addictive algorithms for social and media or creators of the brainrot videos that infest kids' minds. Should we applaud them too?

[browningstreet]

You can hate it, but pretending it has no value isn’t a meaningful counter, esp given its user base. Gary Tan built GBrain on it. Poor logical fallacy-ing on your part.

[Alex_L_Wood]

Gary Tan building something AI-related on top of your work is an anti-flex.

[iejwjw]

And?

The reality is if the thing can’t survive financially without being subsidised in the long run - it deserves to die.

There is no trend showing that these expensive things exist in the long run in this manner. - it’s pure speculation and for many: hopes and dreams.

[hansmayer]

What increase in ARR did he create? Let's stop bullshitting and get down to numbers.

[simianwords]

>He then has the sense of humor to call this grotesque process "incredibly lean".

> What's the point in all of this? What problems is this solving? Who's benefiting?

The economy doesn't work like how you think it does. Its not central planning. All the usages aren't detailed in a specification, submitted for approval to 100 agencies and then allowed to be used.

It shows lack of intellectual curiosity to not engage deeply with obviously profound technology and what the implications are. I find this exercise helpful.

Peter is predicting how LLMs will be used in the future when the prices go down. And they will definitely go down. I think his predictions are correct and we will definitely have something similar to OpenClaw.

[vrganj]

> The economy doesn't work like how you think it does. Its not central planning.

I'm aware. That is in fact my central critique. The way it works is incredibly wasteful of our limited resources, as illustrated by this guy burning through fuel during a time of crisis for no perceptible gain.

> It shows lack of intellectual curiosity to not engage deeply with obviously profound technology and what the implications are.

The "obviously profound" is an assertion without proof.

The rest I agree with, we should engage with the implications of burning through energy to build features that bots think humans want, but nobody actually asked for, all while climate scientists are telling us we're heading for the apocalypse. It is intellectually incurious to just ignore the questions of why and at what cost, maybe even dangerously so.

[Our_Benefactors]

> The way it works is incredibly wasteful of our limited resources

You should try playing the game “workers and resources”; it’s a simcity like game, but based in the Soviet system of central planning, not capitalism. It will make you loathe the inefficiencies in central planning.

[eieiie]

Market economies do not equal capitalism btw.

The appropriate comparison is command vs market. Capitalism is efficient in utilising the characteristics of humans to bring about expansion of markets.

[c-hendricks]

> what the implications are

like one bot finding similar issues and PRs, the another bot closing issues for "lack of activity", meanwhile people are reacting and pleading to speak to a real human?

Congrats builders of the future, you've turned software development into automated voice systems.

[w11qsh]

Mario Zechner wrote the main part of this IP laundering application.

I didn't know that studying photocopiers is suddenly linked to "intellectual curiosity". Being a photocopier maintenance guy was always considered boring.

What you put on top of the machine was intellectually interesting.

[VerTiGo_Etrex]

But this is okay?

“He has /people/ write shitty code for features other /people/ think other people want, then has it reviewed by other /people/ in hopes of catching bugs that the first /people/ put there, then has some more /people/ try to find security bugs in the now /double-peopled/ code to make it /triple-peopled/ and at the end of the day, he spent a shitton of /money, the people/ probably emitted enough carbon to heat our planet by another degree, and has a feature nobody really asked for that might or might not work.”

Honestly sounds like a normal tech company to me. Just with much dumber “people” who are getting exponentially smarter, eventually never die, eventually never forget.

You have to skate to where the puck is going, not where it is.

[bigstrat2003]

> Just with much dumber “people” who are getting exponentially smarter

They haven't gotten any smarter yet, let alone exponentially smarter. They are still the same dumb parrots that they were in the beginning.

[wolvoleo]

With the rate our planet is heating up, there may be nobody left to skate after the puck.

[hansmayer]

Do not equate people with bullshit LLMs, please.

[hansmayer]

Peter shows shit. What did Peter meaningfully achieve? What additional revenue is he creating? ah yes - shit and more shit on all accounts as it seems.

[tim333]

>OpenClaw hit 346K GitHub stars in under five months. 38 million monthly visitors, 3.2 million active users, 44,000+ ClawHub skills, 500K+ running instances, and 180 startups generating $320K+/month. OpenAI acquired the project in February. (https://openclawvps.io/blog/openclaw-statistics)

[hansmayer]

Let me state it again in plain language: How much revenue did the project create and what economic or societal value in general does it create? Gamification bullshit "achievements", like StackOverflow badges and GitHub stars ARE NOT VALUE.

[cyanydeez]

the grift economy requires hype men. Keep up bro.