[Stitch4223]

So, companies are just prepaying with seemingly large parts of their livelihood for (use of) potential value.

Expecting demand to stay equal over longer stretches of time in IT is an interesting bet as both hardware and software tend to depreciate in value extremely rapidly, unlike oil from the example. Or water. Both are limited in nature.

Commodifying something that is the fraction of its value the next year might be possible, but I don’t see how. Perhaps MS Windows or Office are such things, but might not compare.

There are more limits to demand. For example what humans can process. The AI might write the finest prose and the best software but have nobody to read or use it.

[anon7000]

As long as companies will pay for AI and providers can offer better models cheaper than others… there will always be a strong incentive to optimize to make the best value model. Companies can use harnesses that can swap models on a whim, and you could just buy whatever’s cheapest/smartest for your criteria on a particular day.