关于前沿模型

the llm builders are bleeding cash - spending more than they make. the openai v. anthropic rivalry is a race to the bottom. google is going to come out the long term winner because they integrate AI into their vast product portfolio (and microsoft as well because of integration opportunities of their own).

I kinda agree. Reminds me when at a time MATLAB was really popular among many domains including ML but Python came along with all its various libraries like TensorFlow, torch, numpy etc and sides MATLAB out. Big factor is Python being free and open source

I agree that LLMs will become commoditized, and in many ways already are. The only way frontier labs can differentiate on the model is by throwing massive amounts of cash into the R&D money pit. Once this is forced to slow down the gap between open source and closed source models will likely shrink significantly for a majority of use cases.

In my opinion, this is a big reason why frontier labs like OpenAI are desperately trying to break into new markets, like mobile phones for example.

Your thesis is spot-on regarding the middle tier of the market. Open-source is aggressively cannibalizing the standard LLM use cases, and any company whose sole moat is "we API into OpenAI" is facing an existential crisis.

Where the wealth destruction argument gets tricky is the definition of a "frontier." If the top labs are just building slightly better text predictors, they will absolutely be commoditized into utility providers...but if their massive capital spend allows them to unlock completely new paradigms like autonomous scientific research or flawless multi-agent orchestration, enterprises will pay whatever they ask.

The hardware and application layers are definitely the safer bets, but the labs aren't dead yet if they can keep widening the capability gap.