Comment by wilkystyle

Surely you cannot possibly believe there is no reason.

Don't get me wrong: I hope you are right, and I am generally optimistic about the future of AI.

But do you really think, in a world filled with examples of big software companies repeatedly taking away or hamstringing capabilities we've taken for granted, that you can just count on a big tech company hosting cheap inference on incredibly powerful models forever? Surely we have learned by now that these companies do not exist to provide a public service to us, and the government cannot always be counted on to have the best interests of the citizens in mind.

I mean, how many times have we seen this in just the past decade or two?

- Consistent attempts to pass legislation weakening or banning the use of encryption

- Exorbitant Reddit API pricing (still salty about the death of the amazing Apollo app)

- Google fighting against sideloading on android

- US gov't issuing export control directive to suspend access to Fable/Mythos

- US lawmakers considering ways to regulate adoption of open weight models

- Chinese officials considering restricting overseas access to their most advanced models

I can absolutely see a much more restricted, closed down, and expensive future due to a combination of government regulations (regardless of which nation is doing it) and big companies rug-pulling as the check comes due on all the billions of dollars spent to get here.