Comment by PeterStuer

The 'general' proprietary models will always be ones constrained to be affordable to operate for mass scale inference. We have on occasion seen deployed models get significantly 'dumber' (e.g. very clear in the GPT-3 era) as a tradeoff for operational efficiency.

Inside, you can ditch those constraints as not only you are not serving such a mass audience, but you absorb the full benefit of frontrunning on the public.

The amount of capital owed does force any AI company to agressively explore and exploit all revenue channels. This is not an 'option'. Even pursuing relentless and extreme monetization regardless of any 'ethics' or 'morals' will see most of them bankrupt. This is an uncomfortable thruth for many to accept.

Some will be more open in admitting this, others will try to hide, but the systemics are crystal clear.