tauon's recent activity
-
Comment on Passwords have problems, but passkeys have more in ~tech
-
Comment on Why OpenAI is at war with an obscure idea man in ~tech
tauon Link ParentGotta say, I agree. For every claim more ridiculous than the last, there’s somehow receipts to it? Seriously? This guy/Guy’s a visionary if the only major reason his now-ubiquitous ideas had...Gotta say, I agree. For every claim more ridiculous than the last, there’s somehow receipts to it? Seriously? This guy/Guy’s a visionary if the only major reason his now-ubiquitous ideas had failed was having been either too early or too underfunded…
-
Comment on Why OpenAI is at war with an obscure idea man in ~tech
tauon LinkUh-oh, @updawg. (Context for others: this comment)This is the unwritten code of the startup world writ large
Uh-oh, @updawg.
(Context for others: this comment)
-
Comment on Passwords have problems, but passkeys have more in ~tech
tauon (edited )Link ParentThis encapsulates my issues, or at least concerns, with passkeys fairly well: Is there any cross-device solution not dependent on big vendor syncing? For context, I’m mostly on Apple devices (and...This encapsulates my issues, or at least concerns, with passkeys fairly well: Is there any cross-device solution not dependent on big vendor syncing?
For context, I’m mostly on Apple devices (and software) with some Linux usage in between, and currently use Bitwarden for desktop, mobile, CLI, and browser extension use. I haven’t (with admittedly little effort into research) seen any convincing implementation of passkeys covering all of those use cases across all devices and the (all-unix) OS lineup that’s independent enough to survive a de-{Apple, Google, Microsoft}’d device switch down the line. I don’t use Microsoft for much of anything and don’t have a Google account. My only “dependence” on Apple is for the app store on mobile, and to provide the OS’s in general I guess.
Could I now, for example, move away from Bitwarden and import my existing passkeys elsewhere with minimal hassle? I don’t know. With passwords, it’s guaranteed to work: Bitwarden will let me export them just as passkeys, but worst comes to worst, I’d still be able to create and maintain a plain text file and encrypt it.
And yes, of course I realize this is from the perspective of an outlier in terms of technology. For most people who almost never switch brands and/or have accounts with all five big tech companies (and for the cherry on top probably don’t use a password manager currently whatsoever), passkeys will be a massive improvement. I’m not arguing against them being adopted, by all means, please do. But I am concerned about my use case, so please don’t deprecate passwords. I will be happy and quiet as long as passkeys won’t be the only option for authentication. Or only having email as the 2FA. :P
Edit: What happens in the case of “my device drowned after driven over by truck after my house burned down”? What happens if my passkeys hadn’t been synced at all because I’m an average user with my phone as the main device + no backups?
-
Comment on Carbon myopia is concealing a deeper problem: our insatiable appetite for materials in ~enviro
tauon Link ParentExactly… and once implemented, it’s typically pretty darn effective. For example, Germany’s Pfand:the economic landscape can be pushed more towards reusable or recyclable items.
Exactly… and once implemented, it’s typically pretty darn effective. For example, Germany’s Pfand:
The system has successfully encouraged the recycling of Einwegpfand containers. Between 97 and 99% of non-reusable bottles are returned, and recycling rates for cans are around 99%.
-
Comment on Carbon myopia is concealing a deeper problem: our insatiable appetite for materials in ~enviro
tauon Link ParentEver since I read Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, I’ve been a stark proponent of the “green premiums” theory: People, companies and governments at large will only meaningfully start...Ever since I read Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, I’ve been a stark proponent of the “green premiums” theory: People, companies and governments at large will only meaningfully start switching over to and investing in renewables if the alternative technology is a) cheaper or b) only slightly/acceptably more expensive.
The same presumably holds for material consumption: Being wasteful has got to become more expensive (through legislation), or recycling, reusing etc. has to come with great financial savings. There is no other way, otherwise we will (probably) not see widespread adoption of these practices.
-
Comment on OpenAI is a bad business in ~tech
tauon Link ParentDefinitely concur. I had similar thoughts in the other thread recently about how chat transcripts may contain data that should be highly privileged in access/usage rights, even if given...Definitely concur. I had similar thoughts in the other thread recently about how chat transcripts may contain data that should be highly privileged in access/usage rights, even if given voluntarily… and how this information may be used for nefarious purposes.
Similar to the Googles and Facebooks of now, customers/users may be tricked into growing up with a system they don’t even begin to understand the harms or at least dangers of, let alone how it works (for most people).
-
Comment on US DOJ indicates it’s considering Google breakup following monopoly ruling in ~tech
tauon Link ParentAgreed – but who else would be in support of yet another “government thing that potentially costs taxpayer money upfront” in the current economic and social climate? I think we’d find ourselves to...Agreed – but who else would be in support of yet another “government thing that potentially costs taxpayer money upfront” in the current economic and social climate?
I think we’d find ourselves to be in a minority opinion pretty quickly… Even if it’s unjustified due to e.g. benefits outweighing the costs of turning such a project into “public infrastructure” after some time.
-
Comment on OpenAI is a bad business in ~tech
tauon Link ParentAgreed, and no need for apologies! I may have been aware already, but other/future readers perhaps won’t know about sic yet :-) I just didn’t apply it since I wasn’t 100% sure about it being a...Apologies if this old news for you. I find this sort of thing interesting and useful, and am kind of sad that the democratization of writing in the Internet Age has led to the loss of such useful, though somewhat obscure, customs.
Agreed, and no need for apologies! I may have been aware already, but other/future readers perhaps won’t know about sic yet :-)
I just didn’t apply it since I wasn’t 100% sure about it being a mistake like I’d mentioned, and while I would normally have looked it up out of curiosity, I was in a bit of a rush prior to putting up the topic post, haha.
irregardless [sic]
Fun choice for ensuring/provoking a response by updawg, I’m sure. :P
-
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
tauon Link ParentThat sounds cool. Quite interested, do you think you could find the original article again?That sounds cool. Quite interested, do you think you could find the original article again?
-
Comment on OpenAI is a bad business in ~tech
tauon Link ParentFunnily enough, I also felt that it was wrong (not a native speaker), but didn’t bother looking it up anymore this time, because I’m not gonna correct a section quoted from the article either way,...Funnily enough, I also felt that it was wrong (not a native speaker), but didn’t bother looking it up anymore this time, because I’m not gonna correct a section quoted from the article either way, haha.
-
Comment on Cards Against Humanity pays you to give a shit in ~misc
tauon Link ParentThey’re not paying people to vote for a candidate, they’re paying people to vote at all. Which in my understanding makes this okay. Technically someone could go out and vote for Trump after having...They’re not paying people to vote for a candidate, they’re paying people to vote at all. Which in my understanding makes this okay. Technically someone could go out and vote for Trump after having received their money, but given the pre-selection process and publicity it involves, I doubt many would go through that.
From the bottom of the website:
Paid for by Cards Against Humanity PAC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
-
Comment on US DOJ indicates it’s considering Google breakup following monopoly ruling in ~tech
tauon (edited )Link ParentOr we do go back to the concept of paying for software one uses, if it’s too big of a task, in both complexity and time/resources necessary, for open-source volunteers. (I really like your concept...Or we do go back to the concept of paying for software one uses, if it’s too big of a task, in both complexity and time/resources necessary, for open-source volunteers. (I really like your concept though – I just don’t think it’ll become a reality within this or the next few generations sadly)
Kagi’s Orion browser (beware: currently only available on Apple devices) is free to use, with an optional “subscription” fee or one-time purchase model that’s really a donation to the development effort. Not sure if it is profitable/sustainable yet, though.
Edit: typo
-
Comment on OpenAI is a bad business in ~tech
tauon LinkAfter recent discussion on how AI companies may use your data for profit, here is a breakdown of OpenAI’s financials… And while I knew they weren’t profitable yet, I wasn’t aware it’s quite that...After recent discussion on how AI companies may use your data for profit, here is a breakdown of OpenAI’s financials… And while I knew they weren’t profitable yet, I wasn’t aware it’s quite that bad, just a guesstimate feeling of “sure, every aspect of LLMs is expensive“.
It’s a great read, but quite long if you’re only “adjacently interested“ in the topic, so here are some excerpts. Each separated quotation block means I left out a
[…]for the sake of reading flow:OpenAI's monthly revenue hit $300 million in August, and the company expects to make $3.7 billion in revenue this year (the company will, as mentioned, lose $5 billion anyway), yet the company says that it expects to make $11.6 billion in 2025 and $100 billion by 2029, a statement so egregious that I am surprised it's not some kind of financial crime to say it out loud. For some context, Microsoft makes about $250 billion a year, Google about $300 billion a year, and Apple about $400 billion a year. To be abundantly clear, as it stands, OpenAI currently spends $2.35 to make $1.
(double emphasis not mine, but accurate)
Collectively, this means that OpenAI — the most popular company in the industry — can only convert about 3% of its users.
While there's a chance that OpenAI could have a chunk of users that aren't particularly active, one cannot run a business based on selling stuff you hope that people won't use.
OpenAI's primary revenue source is one of the most easily-commoditized things in the world — a Large Language Model in a web browser — and its competitor is Mark Zuckerberg, a petty king with a huge warchest that can never, ever be fired, even with significant investor pressure. Even if that wasn't the case, the premium product that OpenAI sells is far from endearing, still looking for a killer app a year-and-a-half into its existence, with its biggest competitor being the free version of ChatGPT.
And so, [OpenAI] has two options [for the necessary growth]: Either it relies on partnerships and external sales channels, allowing it to potentially increase the gross number of customers, but at the expense of the money it makes, or it can build a proper sales and marketing team.
Both options kinda suck. The latter option also promises to be expensive, costly, and has no guarantees of success.
Let’s go back to Twilio — a company that makes it easy to send SMS messages and push notifications. Over the past quarter, it made around $1bn in revenue. That’s what OpenAI made from renting out its models/APIs over the past year. Twilio also made roughly $4bn over the past four quarters — which is more than OpenAI’s projected revenue for the entirety of 2024. OpenAI, I remind you, is the most hyped company in tech right now, and it’s aiming for a $150bn valuation. Twilio’s market cap is, at the time of writing, just under $10bn.And I cannot express enough how bad a sign it is that its cloud business is so thin. The largest player in the supposedly most important industry ever can only scrounge together $1 billion in annual revenue selling access to the most well-known model in the industry. This suggests a fundamental weakness in the revenue model behind GPT, as well as a fundamental weakness in the generative artificial intelligence market writ large. If OpenAI cannot make more than a billion dollars of revenue off of this, then it’s fair to assume that there is either a lack of interest from developers or a lack of interest from the consumers those developers are serving.
Around the halfway mark, before some of the above had even been mentioned, the thing that spoke to me the most:
A note on “free” products: Some of you may suggest that OpenAI having 350 million free users may be a good sign, likely comparing it to the early days of Facebook, or Google. It’s really important to note how different ChatGPT is to those products. While Facebook and Google had cloud infrastructure costs, they were dramatically lower than OpenAI’s, and both Facebook and Google had (and have) immediate ways to monetize free users.
Both Meta and Google monetize free users through advertising that is informed by their actions on the platform, which involves the user continually feeding the company information about their preferences based on their browsing habits across their platforms. As a result, a “free” user is quite valuable to these companies, and becomes more so as they interact with the platform more.
This isn’t really the case with OpenAI. Each free user of ChatGPT is, at best, a person that can be converted into a paying user. While OpenAI can use their inputs as potential training data, that’s infinitesimal value compared to operating costs. Unlike Facebook and Google, ChatGPT’s most frequent free users actually become less valuable over time, and become a burden on a system that already burns money.
A business model that has costs scaling with increased freemium user counts is nothing new, but it seems like their freemium cost is higher than the expected revenue a paying user will bring in, and that's definitely not how Big Tech got big. Adding on users in other tech companies is almost marginal (cost of storage and some computation) – here, the net value of adding a new user is a loss. (There’s a neat back of the envelope calculation in the blog post comments comparing OpenAI to Dropbox’s free users.)
This business is a fundamentally different one, even if the product/service being sold had already proven itself over time in a big market.
Once the hype starts to cool down (not die off – just relax a little), I’m curious to see what will happen to all the funding that they so desperately need. -
OpenAI is a bad business
42 votes -
Comment on Your chatbot transcripts may be a gold mine for AI companies in ~tech
tauon (edited )Link ParentTo be 100% clear, I don’t know whether they specifically have done that. Didn’t mean to imply it, either. Let’s stick to the facts we do know, and my bad for the implication. While I agree, AI...If this is true, then it is indeed scummy that they've taken to selling data gleaned from user inputs given by API customers, and they deserve scorn and possibly legal action.
To be 100% clear, I don’t know whether they specifically have done that. Didn’t mean to imply it, either. Let’s stick to the facts we do know, and my bad for the implication.
None of the rest of what you said is specific to AI at all, though. This is all stuff we've needed to grapple with regarding the Internet and Big Data as a whole for decades. The only reason to single out AI companies for these things is because AI is the Thing to Be Outraged About du Jour™.
While I agree, AI companies are unique in this so far as they don’t inherently print cash, or turn profits at all, really. It’s not even clear if what their business model offers is truly needed at this point.
I recently started reading an excellent blog post/article (which come to think of it, I’m probably going to post here once I finish it – a bit lengthy) that basically blasts OpenAI’s business as one that will not be profitable for the foreseeable future. (Edit: now posted here)My point is this: If the regular business avenues don’t suffice, they may be more tempted to do something “monetizable” with user data than they would be otherwise.
Outside the limits of any warranties they've given promising privileging the inputs of paid API users, we should have no expectations at all regarding how they may choose to use the data we freely give them. The assumption of privileged communications is generally legally reserved for very few interactions, such as those between medical practitioners or legal representatives and clients. It exists as a principle in law and medicine because the withholding of information undercuts the purpose of those endeavors entirely, and it's extremely difficult to regulate even in fields like those that do have strict licensure.
This is your opinion based on probably the legal framework you feel at home with as well as a bunch of other factors in lived experiences. I have a completely different world view in this regard (and to be clear, that’s fine! We don’t have to be the same person :-)) – I’m a stark proponent of “all personal data is privileged* unless cleared for use otherwise”
*Privileged specifically meaning, at a minimum, knowing what data is out there of you, and potentially having the option to delete it. Not necessarily that it needs to be protected as strictly as e.g. medical info, I’m content with a “right to know” and “right to delete” (similar to what EU legislation actually ensures). But the key point is that I would classify my conversations as “my” data in some form or another.
I just don't see why we should expect the vast majority of Internet interactions to be privileged like that. It's as though people walk into a store marked "Information Merchants," ask a few questions regarding the wares, strike up some chit chat about the crazy thing their cousin did the other week, and then get all shocked Pikachu when the information merchants turn around and sell off any info from their conversation they think might be worth something. More than that, it's like doing this same thing repeatedly for 30+ years every time they change the coat of paint on the storefront.
If that were known upfront, sure. But people don’t enter the (really liking this analogy, BTW) Information Merchants’ brick-and-mortar grounds, they use a business model that sounds like Look Something Up or Connect with Your Friends For Free, but it happens online, so in the process they are able to share data they don’t even know they possess.
We definitely need to be devising workable rules regarding inferential data collection, data retention, data security, and transparency about how data is collected. Information that we freely give, literally unprompted, with no warranties of privilege, that's something else entirely.
Isn’t this the same pair of shoes? Can data security be guaranteed transparently if some LLM is trained on your innermost thoughts? Would you assume a friend or even acquaintance (as that’s how people might use these chat bots) gives “no warranties of privilege” in IRL or digital conversation, or would they assume a default mode of “hey maybe they won’t be sharing my thoughts with dozens/hundreds of employees and potentially millions of people”?
Either way, it’ll be a tricky topic and regulators worldwide will, like you said, probably have a bit of a hard time figuring out good solutions that work well. To me, this unresolved problem isn’t one of “fear” per se like it’d be with social media eroding democracy or information sources being monopolized… but I’d definitely give it the “concern” label.
-
Comment on I'm getting a new Macbook Pro. What's your favorite apps and tips? in ~tech
tauon Link ParentThanks, wasn’t aware! Not as big of an issue nowadays anymore, but I like to use the builtin webcam for video conferences. So that’s not always a “true” option. And let’s be real here: The chip...Thanks, wasn’t aware!
Not as big of an issue nowadays anymore, but I like to use the builtin webcam for video conferences. So that’s not always a “true” option. And let’s be real here: The chip absolutely could’ve handled more monitors at once had they prepared it to support that from the start…, it’s just Apple artificially separating their product categories at play here.
-
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
tauon Link ParentVery cool! Been meaning to (potentially) make one in that “web CLI” style myself. P.S.:Very cool! Been meaning to (potentially) make one in that “web CLI” style myself.
P.S.:
a
Hi, I'm [Your Name]!
-
Comment on Your chatbot transcripts may be a gold mine for AI companies in ~tech
tauon Link ParentVery good to know indeed! I’d heard a bit online of HIPAA, but until now was under the very assumption you just clarified, too. Although I am not a US citizen, and my medical records are protected...Very good to know indeed! I’d heard a bit online of HIPAA, but until now was under the very assumption you just clarified, too.
Although I am not a US citizen, and my medical records are protected (rights to information/correction/erasure) by EU GDPR no matter where collected or stored nonetheless :-)
-
Comment on Your chatbot transcripts may be a gold mine for AI companies in ~tech
tauon Link ParentIf it works, the only reason not to use it would be privacy concerns. I’d probably use it too given sufficient trust in the provider company… As usual, I think the individual user cannot be at blame.If it works, the only reason not to use it would be privacy concerns. I’d probably use it too given sufficient trust in the provider company… As usual, I think the individual user cannot be at blame.
Off-topic, but might be of use: Have you tried using an alternate/unofficial game launcher like Prism Launcher?