If there really was a sure fire way to get rich quick, why sell books to the public? Why not keep it to yourself and apply it to make money?
The same applies to AI. If it was really all that, they wouldn't be selling tokens to the public. They would be forming corporate partnerships, building products and conquering markets --- starting with the financial markets.
Those who can --- do. Those who can't --- sell books and "tokens".
I opened ChatGPT and today it offered me “Finances” which would allow me to connect my financial data with ChatGPT and it could help me manage my subscriptions, etc.
Right now they want to improve their models. That means still getting a lot of data from around the world. Companies wouldn’t give them that data if they thought they might take it and put them out of business.
The smart thing to do would indeed be to pretend to be a service provider until you have enough information that you don’t really need 3rd party data anymore, and then to start putting other companies out of business.
I suspect these companies are less than 1-2 years away from creating a DoorDash/Uber Eats competitor product.
Also, the AI companies learn a lot from selling their inference. They see what markets are growing fastest, what people are using AI for, information benefitted by the startups using their models putting way more effort into distribution than they are. With enough information, the model companies can then create a generic AI-enabled product (like they have over the past year) that factors in all the learnings the startups have undergone.
Rest of your analogy/arguments are just a lot of nonsense too.
Electricity is valuable, and by that logic Siemens Energy should build and own all factories under the sun. TI should stop selling their calculators and compete in Math Olympiad instead!
Yes, obviously there's a whole lot of relationship building and effort and judgement which matters at least as much as infrastructure in building businesses, but the whole schtick of Big AI is to insist their product is better than humans at planning and market analysis and building and sales and marketing and especially at effort and concentration, and they're obviously better capitalised than startups using AI to do something in a particular vertical, so if they believe their own hype, why not?
If they had pushed that argument, would it have changed how useful electricity is?
Can they make more money doing this? I don't think so --- and apparently, they don't either.
Finance and equity markets would be the first place I would look to apply "super intelligence" for huge, quick cconomic returns.
Instead, they peddle "tokens". Wonder why?
Also, I think you are conflating two things:
1. The genuine advancement (and challenges) AI brings.
2. The inevitable hordes of less scrupulous people who take advantage of every new trend to make money however they can.
I am fully immersed in building with AI and I barely notice these less scrupulous. I know they exist. They always exist. But why are you paying so much attention to them?
Others, not miners, also made a lot of money. Personally I recommend investing in AI but not LLMs. I expect John Deere to make a lot of money implementing more AI in farm equipment.
The problem is that they have to spend so much time and money inventing new types of mines, for which they need to be the shovel salesmen.
They’re also called “snake oil salesmen”. Or “Robber Barons”.
It's a tool tho, not a panacea. With the right guidance, for example, you can get some good code results.
Catch 22 --- In order to pay for itself, AI needs to eliminate the very jobs that build the experience and expertise necessary to provide the "right guidance".
At the same time, this will restrict production of quality content that is needed for model training.
In other words, AI creates a self degrading/defeating feed back loop.