> It may be possible to run a "good enough" model on consumer hardware eventually

10-15 years?!!!! What is the definition of good enough? Qwen3 8B or A30B are quite capable models which run on a lot of hardware even today. SOTA is not just getting bigger, it's also getting more intelligence and running it more efficiently. There have been massive gains in intelligence at the smaller model sizes. It is just highly task dependent. Arguably some of these models are "good enough" already, and the level of intelligence and instruction following is much better from even 1 year ago. Sure not Opus 4.5 level, but still much could be done without that level of intelligence.

"Good enough" has to mean users won't be frequently frustrated if they transition to it from a frontier model.

> it is highly task dependent... much could be done without that level of intelligence

This is an enthusiast's glass-half-full perspective, but casual end users are gonna have a glass-half-empty perspective. Quen3-8B is impressive, but how many people use it as a daily driver? Most casual users will toss it as soon as it screws up once or twice.

The phrase you quoted in particular was imprecise (sorry) but my argument as a whole still stands. Replace "consumer hardware" with "typical PCs" - think $500 bestseller laptops from Walmart. AI PCs will remain niche luxury products, like gaming PCs. But gaming PCs benefit from being part of gaming culture and because cloud gaming adds input latency. Neither of these affects AI much.