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Going from 5.5 Instant (which was noticeably bad) to 5.6 Luna is a big jump as well. OpenAI is probably the most prominent among the general public - an advant

Going from 5.5 Instant (which was noticeably bad) to 5.6 Luna is a big jump as well. OpenAI is probably the most prominent among the general public - an advantage in some respects but they're giving away a lot of free inference and thus have to use a pretty small model to do it.

johnsmith1840 1mo ago
I really don't see how they're going to be google here. The free tier is dominated by verticle integration and the platform that people use. Long term I imagine google wins the bottom of the market and I'd be suprised if they lost.
- Tostino 1mo ago
  People tell these models everything. You don't think a pretty unethical company can figure out a way to monetize that?
  - fragmede 1mo ago
    If someone tells ChatGPT I'm cheating on my wife, sure, unethically they could blackmail the user but that seems like a stretch.
    - hluska 1mo ago
      I think the consumer profiling side is more compelling (and likely) than blackmail.
      - Tostino 1mo ago
        Yup, that is where my mind was.
        fragmede 1mo ago
        Oh if you're talking about user profiling on the order of Facebook and Google that ship has sailed...
  - aleph_minus_one 1mo ago
    > People tell these models everything. You don't think a pretty unethical company can figure out a way to monetize that? I assume research-level questions about scientific topics (with a focus on math and computer science) are not easy to monetize (yes, this is by far the most common kind of question to AI models for me). :-D
    - ewild 1mo ago
      I guarantee you're a lot easier to manipulate than you think.
      - aleph_minus_one 1mo ago
        > I guarantee you're a lot easier to manipulate than you think. I can imagine some hypothetical scenarios, but I do believe that I have strong evidence that this is mostly not the case. For example, I think I have already told the story how when I worked together with a person who is a business consultant (and thus salesman) told me that C-level executives are an incredibly easy sales target compared to me. For him, selling something to me was "ultra-hard mode", basically because I could immediately see through every sales tactic that he tried on me.
- tokioyoyo 1mo ago
  Ads.
  - stymaar 1mo ago
    Ads work when you can server $.01 worth of ads to a user for $.0001 of server cost. I fail to see how you can make it work when doing LLM inference which is significantly costlier than web search.
    - tokioyoyo 1mo ago
      In about 4 months, OpenAI’s fundraiser decks will leak, which will include their current ad revenue.
      - livinglist 1mo ago
        Is this a promise or speculation?
        mlvljr 1mo ago
        [dead]
    - kristofferR 1mo ago
      90+% of queries are probably so common/evergreen that, if a cheaper model made all the different language varients and ways of asking the question into one query, they could be cached quite effectively.
      - aleph_minus_one 1mo ago
        > 90+% of queries are probably so common/evergreen that, if a cheaper model made all the different language vari[a]nts and ways of asking the question into one query, they could be cached quite effectively. As I wrote in some parallel post: "When I look at my history with AI chatbots, 90 % of the conversations revolve around research-level problems in math and computer science. :-D" For quite a few of them, creating a decent answer involved quite a bit of thinking by the AI, so I assume they are not the easiest queries to answer, and the queries are too obscure to cache.
- ramraj07 1mo ago
  Even a long while ago it was estimated that every Google search cost google several cents (and that they made back 10 cents). Google also uses AI for search results. Thus its not inconceivable that openai can make money here.
  - johnsmith1840 1mo ago
    I typed wrong I mean I don't see how they will beat google. Google is the only true vertically integrated AI company meaning they own price at the bottom margins with their own chips and models made just for them.
    - ekidd 1mo ago
      Google's public AI model lineup is pretty bad right now. Gemini 3.1 Pro is scoring worse than some mid-sized Chinese models at 1/20th the cost, and their Flash and Flash Light models are horrendously overpriced on task benchmarks compared to GPT 5.6 Luna or the mid-sized Chinese models. There's no reason why Google's public stuff is this stale, overpriced and underwhelming. But at least until their next round of models drops, even calling them a "frontier lab" is starting to feel like a stretch. Which is weird!
      - m77 1mo ago
        Its good for Google to signal to all the dicks on Youtube and elsewhere that they do not compete with anyone.
      - willy_k 1mo ago
        That doesn’t matter very much for the free tier market though. The game is to have something useable that is actually used, and that can be offered at sustainable margins. Google has significant advantages in those regards.
      - eru 1mo ago
        It's interesting that Google fell behind before and managed to get back up to the frontier. But, boy, is their performance in this race uneven. Especially considering that in the 2010s they were The Big AI company, especially after buying out boutique shops like DeepMind.

johnsmith1840 1mo ago

I really don't see how they're going to be google here. The free tier is dominated by verticle integration and the platform that people use. Long term I imagine google wins the bottom of the market and I'd be suprised if they lost.

Tostino 1mo ago
People tell these models everything. You don't think a pretty unethical company can figure out a way to monetize that?
- fragmede 1mo ago
  If someone tells ChatGPT I'm cheating on my wife, sure, unethically they could blackmail the user but that seems like a stretch.
  - hluska 1mo ago
    I think the consumer profiling side is more compelling (and likely) than blackmail.
    - Tostino 1mo ago
      Yup, that is where my mind was.
      - fragmede 1mo ago
        Oh if you're talking about user profiling on the order of Facebook and Google that ship has sailed...
- aleph_minus_one 1mo ago
  > People tell these models everything. You don't think a pretty unethical company can figure out a way to monetize that? I assume research-level questions about scientific topics (with a focus on math and computer science) are not easy to monetize (yes, this is by far the most common kind of question to AI models for me). :-D
  - ewild 1mo ago
    I guarantee you're a lot easier to manipulate than you think.
    - aleph_minus_one 1mo ago
      > I guarantee you're a lot easier to manipulate than you think. I can imagine some hypothetical scenarios, but I do believe that I have strong evidence that this is mostly not the case. For example, I think I have already told the story how when I worked together with a person who is a business consultant (and thus salesman) told me that C-level executives are an incredibly easy sales target compared to me. For him, selling something to me was "ultra-hard mode", basically because I could immediately see through every sales tactic that he tried on me.
tokioyoyo 1mo ago
Ads.
- stymaar 1mo ago
  Ads work when you can server $.01 worth of ads to a user for $.0001 of server cost. I fail to see how you can make it work when doing LLM inference which is significantly costlier than web search.
  - tokioyoyo 1mo ago
    In about 4 months, OpenAI’s fundraiser decks will leak, which will include their current ad revenue.
    - livinglist 1mo ago
      Is this a promise or speculation?
      - mlvljr 1mo ago
        [dead]
  - kristofferR 1mo ago
    90+% of queries are probably so common/evergreen that, if a cheaper model made all the different language varients and ways of asking the question into one query, they could be cached quite effectively.
    - aleph_minus_one 1mo ago
      > 90+% of queries are probably so common/evergreen that, if a cheaper model made all the different language vari[a]nts and ways of asking the question into one query, they could be cached quite effectively. As I wrote in some parallel post: "When I look at my history with AI chatbots, 90 % of the conversations revolve around research-level problems in math and computer science. :-D" For quite a few of them, creating a decent answer involved quite a bit of thinking by the AI, so I assume they are not the easiest queries to answer, and the queries are too obscure to cache.
ramraj07 1mo ago
Even a long while ago it was estimated that every Google search cost google several cents (and that they made back 10 cents). Google also uses AI for search results. Thus its not inconceivable that openai can make money here.
- johnsmith1840 1mo ago
  I typed wrong I mean I don't see how they will beat google. Google is the only true vertically integrated AI company meaning they own price at the bottom margins with their own chips and models made just for them.
  - ekidd 1mo ago
    Google's public AI model lineup is pretty bad right now. Gemini 3.1 Pro is scoring worse than some mid-sized Chinese models at 1/20th the cost, and their Flash and Flash Light models are horrendously overpriced on task benchmarks compared to GPT 5.6 Luna or the mid-sized Chinese models. There's no reason why Google's public stuff is this stale, overpriced and underwhelming. But at least until their next round of models drops, even calling them a "frontier lab" is starting to feel like a stretch. Which is weird!
    - m77 1mo ago
      Its good for Google to signal to all the dicks on Youtube and elsewhere that they do not compete with anyone.
    - willy_k 1mo ago
      That doesn’t matter very much for the free tier market though. The game is to have something useable that is actually used, and that can be offered at sustainable margins. Google has significant advantages in those regards.
    - eru 1mo ago
      It's interesting that Google fell behind before and managed to get back up to the frontier. But, boy, is their performance in this race uneven. Especially considering that in the 2010s they were The Big AI company, especially after buying out boutique shops like DeepMind.