I think a lot of the cost comparisons to employees are off by a factor of 2 or more. AI is the ultimate contractor. Available instantly. Doesn't charge during idle periods. Pre-vetted and pre-trained. No contract negotiations or complex accounting.

That is worth a small multiple of the fully-loaded employee cost. So AI might be easily worth more than $200 per human-equivalent hour. With high utilization, that might be $8000-10000 a month.

With that kind of spend, AI provider financials looks less frightening.

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lbreakjai a day ago | parent | next [-]

AI is more like a union that controls the entire labour pool. I'm one out of a few million developers. I've got very limited bargaining power. I can't withdraw my labour because I need it to make rent and buy food. My cost has a very predictable ceiling.

On the other hand, there's two AI labs, that could afford to eat your profit, because what are you gonna do? They're your entire labour force.

	▲	bluGill 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are more than two options. The others are not as good, but depending on who you believe they might be good enough.

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ilovecake1984 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Agree. But if that’s the thinking then you need to compare vs off shore contract rates, not on shore contract rates.

	▲	travisb 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Off-shore isn't available on the same schedule. My AIntern is available the moment I start my day (not normal for off-shore in a different time zone) _and_ is available after the end of my day when I want it to work after I've gone home (useful for work using scarce resources). It even keeps the context across that time span.