The Shift, Not the Risk

Hello friends, it has been a while as some IRL matters have kept me away from my terminal for some time, which is par for the course. I will keep this one short, but I did want to take some time to talk about the uncertainty that is rampaging through the industry like a plague.

AI vs. I

Everyone is witnessing the downsizing as companies have employees work more with AI, to the point where we are seeing major shifts in manpower needs. This has gotten everyone into a panic, and I am hearing genuine concern from colleagues and newcomers to the industry.

Should we have direct concern? In my opinion, it is more a concern about the shift rather than the risk. Think about the industrial revolution, where many roles that were completed by hand swiftly shifted into a realm where assembly lines and mass production moved labor from one specialty to another. I think history repeating itself would play directly into the idea of the future moving toward a more supervisory rather than directorial role for humans in certain tasks.

The one issue:

Now, this is not entirely my original idea. I heard this from a short by Marcus Hutchins on LinkedIn, who brought up a phenomenal point following the release of a new AI model: who will be funding this? This idea stems from a few points. AI is still in private funding phases; once that funding is gone, how will token and usage prices for these models be affected? For example, say they unleash the fancy new models on open source projects. No one is funding those as it is, so where is the $200,000 to run the mega model coming from?

Now, before someone counters this "issue" with the recent update that Nvidia is pushing for local models, I would simply say the GPUs being put in laptops won't even come close to matching cloud-based models, and I guarantee the high-end rigs they will try to push will be exponentially more expensive. I would guess north of $4,000 USD.

Closing idea:

I wanted to wrap this up with a final thought: we are in this together, and I mean the industry. In these times of worry and uncertainty, these are the defining moments that can really shape the path forward, not by complaining, worrying, and jumping ship, but by being an anchor, adapting, and helping each other push forward.

Always remember what brought you into this field!