Submitted by bikeskata t3_10r7k0h in MachineLearning
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/01/chatgpt-subscriptions-chatbot-openai
Not fully paywalled, but there's a tiering system.
Comments
Parzival_007 t1_j6vtx0l wrote
I'm not surprised, but imo this is good. I think they did the same once before ? Hopefully the watermarking system gets very good too, I know there is active research going on in this area.
TrevorIRL t1_j6x5uer wrote
So it costs them $100 000/day to run
30 days * $100 000/day = $3 million a month in costs
10 million users * 20% who will buy (Pareto Principle) = 2 million users who buy a subscription.
2 million * $20/month = $40 000 000/ month in revenue.
Assuming I did my math right, that’s some pretty amazing margins and it’s only going to get better!
BCBCC t1_j6x9axw wrote
I know what the Pareto principle is, and I don't think 20% of users will pay this subscription fee, that's a pretty wild assumption
TrevorIRL t1_j6xhuvh wrote
Your right, it was just some quick napkin math, I’m not saying it’s guaranteed.
I would however say that even if you said only 10% of users would pay, you are still at $20 000 000.
5% is still $10 000 000.
Imagine having a product better than Google, being able to improve productivity and save hours in your business, and not having to fear that too many people are using it when you need it most.
I guarantee we see more than 5% of users willing to shell out $20/mo for this.
Edit: This is also a product that’s going to continue to get better over time!
ResetThePlayClock t1_j6xkc53 wrote
I agree with this take. It’s already gotten me out of several jams at work, and it is DEFINITELY better than google.
arhetorical t1_j6xxijd wrote
$20 is frankly a very reasonable price for anyone who uses it professionally. For people who just use to generate memes or students who want to cheat on homework it's less reasonable, but I don't think that's their target market (and in the case of cheating, something they actually want to avoid).
2blazen t1_j6ykrcq wrote
I've been using the GPT3 API for around 0.4c per request with 0 down time. With my current usage this sums up to around 10c a day, 3usd per month. I don't see how 20usd is reasonable
CowardlyVelociraptor t1_j7025ho wrote
You're paying a premium for the nice UI
2blazen t1_j70vh2g wrote
Might be just me, but I really hate how the reply is returned in the UI. Even if the subscription will solve the random interruptions during generation, the word-by-word printing kills me, I'd rather wait a bit but receive my answer in one piece
danielbln t1_j7c9mpc wrote
I much prefer to see the tokens as they are generated, it's much better UX as you can abort the generation if you feel it's not going in the right direction. All my GPT3 integrations use stream:true and display every word as it comes in.
arhetorical t1_j70ndxc wrote
Isn't ChatGPT more advanced than the davinci models available through the API? In any case, the point is that if you use it for work, $20 is negligible compared to the time you'll save.
2blazen t1_j70ux9o wrote
I thought so too, but haven't actually notice any difference, other than how the davinci models don't have the extensive content filters.
>if you use it for work, $20 is negligible
If my company pays for it, sure, otherwise I'll always prefer the request-based pricing with a nice API that I can just call from my terminal
frequenttimetraveler t1_j6xnm9i wrote
20%? More like 2% (the whales)
This seems like an uninspired monetization strategy. But it's alright , it s still very early days , time will tell
TrevorIRL t1_j6xvg76 wrote
Even a VERY conservative estimate here yields $4 000 000 a month in revenue which is more than enough to cover expenses and grow.
Very right that this is early days and yes, uninspired, but effective.
There will be new avenues for monetization once it matures. For example, opening the API for a fee would be another strategy that would earn huge dollars for OpenAI and allow some incredible apps to be developed!
2blazen t1_j6yluho wrote
>that’s some pretty amazing margins
That's just the (estimated) hardware uptime cost, you haven't mentioned the wages or the R&D investment
TrevorIRL t1_j6zvy53 wrote
Sure, but until recently, OpenAI has been a not for profit researching platform.
That means, the R and D would have been written off as a cost of production for this product.
As far as publicly known info, $3 million a year is our best guess at what it costs to run.
Considering the excitement at future utility, I don’t imagine capital will be the constraint for future development.
bojohnsonyadig t1_j6wnhha wrote
Will this attract the average joe user who just thought it was fun? Who do you think will be the target market/first adopters to pay?
cachemonet0x0cf6619 t1_j6ws965 wrote
me and my kids. i use it as a replacement for stack overflow and my kids use it for school.
bojohnsonyadig t1_j6x1hud wrote
It’s not up to date for any libraries past it’s training date, so are you using it as a rough answer or are your questions not generally library specific?
cachemonet0x0cf6619 t1_j6zkpdk wrote
correct. nothing specific. I’ve given it a bit of code and asked it to add doc strings to it. it was meh.
I’ve asked it to help me set up a new environment. it gave me old set up instructions but was able to make my way through by changing old versions. a lot like google.
it will write a lot of boiler tests. I’ve asked it to write a script and then write a unit test for the script. that was also meh but it was a good scaffold
42gauge t1_j7ebele wrote
How do your kids use it?
throwaway2676 t1_j6xerk7 wrote
I think a lot of people would pay for the initial model they first released. Since then they've been censoring the shit out of it to avoid controversy, and a fair amount of the hype died down among the average joes.
At this point I think their main target demo will be white collar workers who use it to make work easier. However, the hype will pick back up once they connect it to the internet.
race2tb t1_j6xns5j wrote
Some model like this one is Destined to become a Utility governement pays for. The productive boost you would give your society would make the cost seem insignificant.
[deleted] t1_j6vy5uy wrote
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bpooqd t1_j6x4p5d wrote
Cool, but I wished it would include an API and integration in other messengers like Signal. Would still sign up for it for sure though as long as its reasonably priced (<20$/month).
Monoranos t1_j6vy1lg wrote
I am the only one who finds it weird to make profits from what it seems to be stolen data from the whole humanity?
Edit: Well didn't think this was a controversial take. I feel like people juste choose to ignore the whole aspect of consent and ethics about your data.
The GDPR further clarifies the conditions for consent in Article 7: https://gdpr.eu/gdpr-consent-requirements/
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Where processing is based on consent, the controller shall be able to demonstrate that the data subject has consented to processing of his or her personal data.
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If the data subject’s consent is given in the context of a written declaration which also concerns other matters, the request for consent shall be presented in a manner which is clearly distinguishable from the other matters, in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language. Any part of such a declaration which constitutes an infringement of this Regulation shall not be binding.
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The data subject shall have the right to withdraw his or her consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Prior to giving consent, the data subject shall be informed thereof. It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent.
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When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, inter alia, the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract.
E_Snap t1_j6w4skd wrote
So are we just collectively pretending that the terms and conditions of websites don’t exist? You put something up on somebody else’s server, 99% of the time it’s no longer yours to claim ownership of anymore.
Monoranos t1_j6xlf7p wrote
I understand your point, but it's important to consider the ethics of using data that was gathered without explicit consent or understanding of how it would be used. Just because it's technically allowed under terms and conditions, doesn't mean it's morally right. Companies have a responsibility to ensure that they use data in a responsible and ethical manner, rather than solely relying on the legality of the terms and conditions.
[deleted] t1_j6wcxc9 wrote
Stolen from whom? This comment you posted doesn’t belong to you. Images you post on Instagram don’t belong to you.
Can you explain your thinking a bit more?
Or are you basically realizing how important SOPA was 7 years later, well into the next AI boom when the horse has very much left the barn?
Perhaps you are young and inexperienced in this domain — or both?
[deleted] t1_j6wo0lz wrote
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Monoranos t1_j6xny7i wrote
Also to respond to your "to young and inexperienced" was not necessary for this debate. it gives the impression that you just want to insult me which shows a lack of maturity.
And also, maybe you should keep up to date with the legality of this mather (GDPR: Explicit consent). But hey, maybe you're to old or ignorant in this domain — or both? :)
Monoranos t1_j6xlrzq wrote
While it is true that much of the data used to train these models is sourced from publicly available sources, it's also true that much of this data was generated by individuals who may not have been fully aware of the implications or intended uses of their contributions. The question of who owns this data and how it can be used is an important one, and it's understandable that some people might feel uncomfortable about the potential for profit to be made from it. It's important to have a conversation about ethical considerations in the development and deployment of large language models.
mr_birrd t1_j6x06eq wrote
You think the whole internet is free to run? Anyways, they don't use any of your data to train it.
Monoranos t1_j6xmoc2 wrote
I am not saying the whole internet is free to run but, using people's data without consent raises privacy and ethical concerns. Profiting from potentially stolen data raises questions about legality and morality.
mr_birrd t1_j6xo5qk wrote
No it doesn't raise ethical concerns. You literally have to agree about usage about your data and at least in Europe should be able to opt out of everything if you want. You should 100% know this, those are the rules of the game. Just cause you don't read the terms of agreements doesn't make it unethical for companies to read your data. Sure if you then use it for insurances that won't help you cause you will become sick w.h.p. that's another thing. But don't act surprised.
Monoranos t1_j6xp59x wrote
Just read my edit about the GDPR and explicit consent.
"in Europe should be able to opt out of everything if you want." Great point, I wonder how would OpenAI react if people want them to remove their data. Is it even possible ?
mr_birrd t1_j6xps33 wrote
Do you know the dataset is was trained on even?
Monoranos t1_j6xs7m3 wrote
I don't believe that they disclosed the data on which they trained chatGPT. If you know do you mind sharing ? :)
mr_birrd t1_j6xtb3u wrote
Edit: Chatgpt uses GPT3. Search the dataset it used.
Google it they have full transparency. If you find a text by yourself there maybe ask if they can remove it. First of all, the data is only used for stachastic gradient descent and the model has no idea about the content it read, it only can model probabilities of words, e.g. it learned to speak but it only speaks such that it mostly outputs what makes sence in a bayesian way.
So the model is already trained and it didn't even read all of the data, those huge models often only read each instance of sample once at maximum, since they learn that "well".
Also in the law text you wrote I understand it that if you opt out in the future, it doesn't make past data processing wrong. The model is already trained, so they don't have to remove anything.
They also mostly have a whole ethics chapter in their papers, maybe you go check it out. Ethics etc is not smth unknows and especially such big companies also have some people working on that in their teams.
Monoranos t1_j6xumt3 wrote
Even if they have full transparency it doesn't mean they are GDPR complient. I tried to look more into it but was not successfull.
mr_birrd t1_j6xvaec wrote
Well the thing is you aren't the first one to think about that. They do this for very long already and know that what they do is legal here. They would not waste millions in training it just to throw it away afterwards.
myrmil t1_j6xw2sq wrote
Yeah, they sure wouldn't Kappa
butter14 t1_j6y4rnd wrote
It essentially operates the same way as humans digesting content and then outputting content from the ingested data.
lunarNex t1_j6vgjgy wrote
So not "open" AI anymore? That greed sets in fast.
[deleted] t1_j6vhw51 wrote
You must be new here from a gaming subreddit or something where people talk like this, and not actually in a research field.
ChatGPT is the only free, self hosted product they have exposed people to. This is actually the norm for OpenAI and you would be dying on a stale hill.
Other than that their inference code is open. You can run a local version of GPT with your own code and a locally existing model right now (if you know what you are doing, minor caveat)
Same for their Whisper code. Doesn’t get more open than that. The compute required to train a multi billion parameter model isn’t something you could do anyways.
Lastly “open” doesn’t just mean free of cost. It means intellectually transparent about the code (this is always what it means). There’s no reason to confuse the two. It costs 100k per day to run these models so I’m not sure what leads you to think that risk should be part of an intellectually open philosophy when you can just deploy GPT yourself if you’re so inclined.
Welcome to the sub.
krand16 t1_j6whjv5 wrote
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