> I suppose I'm just wondering if this wave of nearly Fable class models will be runnable on ~$10k worth of hardware at reasonable speeds in the near future

You're able to run quantized ~100B class models on local hardware today, but still lots of compromises when it comes to quality. I guess it ultimately depends on how far "near future" is, in a year you'd likely be able to run something like 5.6 Terra on local (~10K USD) hardware, but Sol/Fable would still be out of range, and at that point the closed-source labs probably have one or two more iterations put out at that point.

I think it’s mainly a question of whether the price-fixing of VRAM continues or whether an inflection point is forced by the low margins of the industry and potential supply increases. Once the normal scaling of hardware and prices resumes, it’s game over for proprietary, which is why there’s so much urgency to seek market control instead right now.