alt Hacker NewsI think the best existing "product" analogy for LLM's is coffee.
Coffee is a universally available, productivity enhancing commodity. There are some varieties certainly, but at the end of the day, a bean is a bean. It will get the job done. Many love it, many need it, but it doesn't really cost all that much. Where people get fancy is in all the fancy but unnecessary accoutrements for the brewing of coffee. Some choose to spend a lot on appliances that let you brew at home rather than relying on some external provider. But the quality is really no different.
Apparently global coffee revenue comes out to around $500B. I would not be surprised if that is around what global AI revenue ends up being in a few years.
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Enjoyable analogy.
> Some choose to spend a lot on appliances that let you brew at home rather than relying on some external provider.
This makes it sound like buying brewed coffee is the budget option. But the real budget option I've seen is to brew at home. Almost any household will have an appliance to boil water. Then add instant coffee.
I don't understand why, but in my experience instant coffee seems to be the baseline even in coffee-producing countries.
> But the quality is really no different.
Hard disagree. As someone who is somewhat into the home brewing rabbit hole, I can tell you that the gulf between what I can make at home and what you get in Starbucks is enormous. And I'm no expert in the field by any means.
The rest of your analogy holds up, but not that sentence.
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> Coffee is a universally available, productivity enhancing commodity
The analogy carries further than you intended. If you have never reached addiction stage, then there is no factual productivity enhancement. "But I'm so much less productive if I haven't had my morning coffee" Yeah, because you have an addiction. It sounds worse than it is, if you just don't drink coffee for a few days the headaches will subside. But it doesn't actually enhance productivity beyond placebo.