What if the free AI party gets over?

Too many tools to choose from

The current AI scene feels like the big bang expansion of our galaxy. Everything is growing and new AI models and platforms are getting built and there is plenty to choose from.
This seems to be the general view out there.
Scratch below the surface and we would be able to see the reality.

Companies are building their pot of gold

These tools like the Chat GPT’s of the world cost a fortune to build and they need a lot of data to train. When we are in the initial phase of AI it is like the sampling phase where we can go out and try so many different tools.

Tools offering free credits and free usage tiers

All these tools and platforms are growing their user base and at the same time they are using the user inputs to train and fine tune their models.

Do we ever read the fine print?

When we upload our pics and sensitive data to a LLM do we ever check what it does with it after it has processed our query?
The pictures we upload to create a Ghibli image may end up on a remote server in another country and eventually it could be misused.
Have you ever thought about that possibility? Very few people give this fact a thought.
Rarely do we read the fine print or the end user agreement and the data usage policies when we sign up.

Is it a trap?

Hard to day at this point in time because currently we are offering our time and ideas to help the AI models to get trained. As the AI models learn and evolve in the process a lot of skills are dying out.
Conventional graphic designers are nowhere to be found as AI tools has taken up their jobs.

What if the party gets over?

Since a lot of money is put into these platforms at some point the businesses backing them would like to break even. They would like to get their investment to pay returns and make money.
By then we would be too dependent on the AI tools and perhaps find them to be indispensable.

The AI dependency is growing

Most of us are using these AI platforms and without them we cannot function.
Someday it would be time for these businesses to cut these free tiers of usage and we would have no choice but to adopt the pay and use model.

This is not just a fear

Even as you read this platforms like chat gpt are already tightening the noose around the free users.
On one hand the user base is growing tremendously on these platforms and this puts tremendous pressure on the platforms.
The platforms squeeze the free tier limits and cut out the users for a few hours. These are more like blackout hours where a user can do little but to wait.
Else once can pay up and move from the free tier to the paid model.

Is this fair?

To be fair to any business if they have invested a large sum of money into research and building a client base then they are entitled to reap the rewards as well.

Are there alternatives for the end users?

At some point the more tech savvy users may opt to host and manage their own LLM’s using the open source models out there.
Let us see how things evolve as we go forward.

Main image created with AI

Posted Using INLEO