Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
We can't say much about whether or not it will get cheaper. Technology changes in unpredictable ways, so it may well be the case that it gets cheaper. Currently, though, none of the LLM are even close to being profitable, which means they aren't charging anywhere near the break even point.
Ah. I see now where we we actually disagree. What is going to happen here I think is very predictable because it has happened several times. Whale oil made way for petroleum, the horse and carriage made way for the combustion engine, ENIAC evolved into the laptop, cellphone and desktop. The electrical infrastructure took us out of the dark. Powered flight gave humans an entirely new dimension of travel. The postal system was later supplemented by the telegraph system, which eventually went extinct due to the telephone system. Then all of these things were eventually dwarfed by the internet, email, and WhatsApp.

Growing pains and exorbitant costs were always part of the deal for technological progress. AI will be no different. Just like electricity, the internet, and the combustion engine, AI is a revolutionary technology that quickly ensnared us into a level of dependency that guaranteed its success, and like all of these previous developments, it will succeed and change the very foundations of how modern societies operate.

Now we can contrast this with something like fusion energy. Fusion energy is perpetually 30 years away, and the reason it's having trouble succeeding is because we already have a perfectly functional petroleum-based energy infrastructure. EVs fall into this category as well. The demand for EVs is entirely dependent on artificial demand driven by how many people buy into climate change hysteria. We don't actually need them which is why despite being around for nearly 2 decades, they have failed to dominate the market. Unlike the internet, aircraft, electricity and AI, EVs and fusion energy don't give us anything new. They are just different ways of doing things we have already mastered.