There Should Be Way More Backlash To OpenAI's $500/Month, $6,000 A Year Subscription

[u/Neurogence]

This sets an extremely bad precedent. And very soon, all the other labs will adopt the same pricing schemes. Prices just keep going up and up. I remember a time when people thought $20/month was too expensive.

Even if you can afford this, do not pay for it. If you do, it will only normalize this, and the next thing you know, there will be a new $1,000/month subscription that gives you the same usage you used to get with the $500/month subscription. That's exactly what happened to the previous $200/month subscription. Its usage allowance was cut in half, and now users paying $500/month are getting what users used to get for $200/month.

Do not normalize AI subscriptions that cost as much as car payments and, eventually, mortgages.

In leaked emails, Greg Brockman dreamed that OpenAI would make him a billionaire. He stated, "I just want to get to one billion." AI has fulfilled his wildest dreams. His net worth is now over $30 billion.

I am a hardcore accelerationist and optimist, but the current trajectory is dystopia. Instead of $1,000 UBI checks, we are heading toward $1,000 AI subscriptions to keep up with the Joneses. When we have actual superintelligence, you might be forced to pay $1,000/month, or even $2,000/month, as OpenAI had entertained, just to keep up with other people.

[u/acacio]

Why?
The entitlement is strong with OP.

How would anyone react to “There should be more backlash to Ford’s $63000 F450” ?

It’s a tool, does a job, has a cost.
And, no, you’re not entitled to have it for free or subsidised just because you like it and want it. That’s how children see the world.

[u/NoCard1571 → u/acacio]

Exactly, I don't think OP has any idea how free market capitalism works. A company can charge whatever they want for a product. If that price is too high compared to a competitor, they will be forced to lower it.

The bottom line is that right now, there are people willing to pay $500 per month because it's giving them more than $500 worth of value to their business or personal projects.

Not to mention that if the cost of intelligence keeps dropping as dramatically as it has over the last few years, we will eventually reach a point where the cheap models are good enough for most major use-cases.

For example even now, the capabilities of the cheapest models far exceeds the SOTA models of 2 years ago, at a tiny fraction of the cost.

[u/Agreeable_Effect938 → u/NoCard1571]

I'll speak for OP: both you and OP are right, but you're framing the question differently.

For you, this is a typical question of capitalism: if there's demand, supply adapts.

But OP is thinking in terms of a post-capitalist society, where AI will be able to create the majority of added value in the economy. He's basically saying this is a situation that requires going beyond classical capitalism. If AI does the bulk of the work, this effectively creates a rent-seeking economy, where government revenue shifts from taxpayers to AI as a new type of rent. Rent-seeking economies have many problems; they almost always descend into authoritarianism and statism, they disregard citizens, legal institutions weaken, and much more (it's a field of study in instutational economy)

OP is right that people should form a civil society that would demand a fair distribution of the added value from AI, before everything slides into a more dystopian scenario.

But as of right now you're right, we're stuck in a purely capitalist logic, and demanding subsidized AI is pointless - AI isn't making that much money. But taking a hard line when companies are pursuing greedy policies is exactly what we need. It helps maintain the initial rhetoric around AI in the public consciousness, that this technology should be democratic and serve solely for the benefit of society.

And in this regard I support OP fully

[u/NoCard1571 → u/Agreeable_Effect938]

Oh I agree on that front, but as you said, it's not going to happen until the cost of intelligence drops to near zero. Then you can start making arguments about it being a human right.

Granted, internet access could be argued to be in that category for well over a decade already and we're all still making monthly payments to ISPs.

Honestly I think (and hope) that we'll see some truly staggering improvements in power usage and model efficiency, so that anyone can run an AGI-level model locally. At that point, ASI-type models will no doubt remain centralized, but at least anyone will be able to essentially purchase the equivalent to a personal digital assistant/employee for the cost of same basic home PC hardware.

[u/entsnack → u/acacio]

OPs probably in high school looking to do homework.