It feels like LLM’s have been a big deal, but only in certain circles. The image synthesis models opened the general idea of AI as an important tool to a much broader audience, who retroactively found GPT-3.

It’s unclear if OpenAI was always going to release ChatGPT or if it was in some ways built as an easier access point than the playground, for a growing community of people engaging with their products.

Whatever the case may be, the timing is pretty good, because if GPT-4 is a decent leap forward, you have developers who have been building on top of GPT-3 for years now (some who have become sizable businesses in their own right), a bunch of use cases in the world and a growing community that is understanding future use-cases — all which will allow GPT-4 to potentially seriously break into the mainstream, not as a name brand per se but as a tool that impacts a much larger part of society.