alt Hacker NewsThe way I see it, AI is more comparable to some sort of utility. Like electricity, internet, etc. - and should be priced that way. If we ever get to "true" AGI, and the open source models also get there, what's the moat? Access to compute could be the differentiator.
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I was of the same opinion but the main difference is that models get better which I am not sure you have a correspondent in utilities (what would get better?). The barrier of entry in utilities is capital. Here there seems to be more. Why is Grok behind and why is Gemini so ... what's the word? If models progress reach the RSI point there is no parallel to utilities imo.
This is pretty much false. There's a lot of art and technique that goes into creating a model. A model is also clearly not fungible - it has certain characteristics and behaves a certain way. It is fungible in the same way humans are fungible.
Less an utility and more like foodstuff.
You have your boiled potatoes/rice/beans (small local models), steak (Opus 5.5), wagyu (fable)
> Access to compute could be the differentiator.
Already is the differentiator even with the models we have now which while having differences are mostly swappable for a lot of users/use cases.
For all that the local models have improved (and Qwen 3.8 27b is still impressing me) they aren't what you can run (or would run) if you have an entire data centre stuffed with H200's.
All this does is further widen the divide we already know exists by those with access to resources using them to increase their access to resources and those without getting to watch because there isn't much they can do without resources.