> The big question is: is it useful enough to justify the cost when the VC subsidies go away?
I won't claim local LLMs as nearly as good as various top models behind paid subscriptions/APIs, but I'm certain I'd be able find a way (for me) of working with them well enough, if the entire paid/hosted ecosystem disappeared over night. Even with models released today.
I think the VC subsidies probably "make stuff happen" faster, and without it we'd see slower progress, but I don't think 100% of the ecosystem would disappear even if 100% of VC funding disappeared. We're bound for another AI winter at one point, and some will surely survive even that :)
I won't claim local LLMs as nearly as good as various top models behind paid subscriptions/APIs, but I'm certain I'd be able find a way (for me) of working with them well enough, if the entire paid/hosted ecosystem disappeared over night. Even with models released today.
I think the VC subsidies probably "make stuff happen" faster, and without it we'd see slower progress, but I don't think 100% of the ecosystem would disappear even if 100% of VC funding disappeared. We're bound for another AI winter at one point, and some will surely survive even that :)