What moat?

kasey_junk 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is, and always has been, data contracts. Which is why the hyperscalars are a more likely candidate to take American frontier business than Chinese vendors.

I can click a button in Azure foundry and run open weight models that are approved through my compliance and procurement teams.

I don’t know how open sourcing this stuff helps deepseek but it means I’m getting ever better and cheaper models so I’m fine with it.

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torben-friis 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well, whatever real or perceived moat Openai/anthropic had. OP claims this open source inference engine reduces their chances of high valuation, I'm assuming this is due to their in house engine being something they could use as differentiation before?

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mrweasel 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That is probably what has been the most fascinating part of this AI/LLM boom, the moat was apparently never the technology. It has been very much like nuclear energi (and weapons), once you know how to do it, it's not that difficult. It's still fairly hard, but you can do it. The moat has been the funding for the infrastructure and if that dries up you're in trouble.

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wg0 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah what moat is the right question to ask.

	▲	dividedbyzero 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I've been trying to find an answer to that, too. The best I've got right now is this: Moat-like things going for them: - access to the US government (for huge inflated government contracts as a source of free capital, having the competition banned, having their products legally mandated, getting other preferential treatment, having foreign governments bullied into granting similar advantages) Too unsustainable, too fragile, too small: - Strong brands: Brand loyalty seems like a pretty insignificant factor in AI right now - Semi-exclusive hardware access, RAM buyouts: Unsustainable even in the short term - Lock-in effects: Their models aren't very stable across versions, or very unique, and switching providers is about as easy as it can be in a highly competitive market. - Exclusive technology that is important, advanced and hard to replicate to a degree that would materially set them apart and justify potentially much higher cost. Maybe I'm missing something here, but a lot of the claims they make to that end fall apart even on light scrutiny (due to things like test sets that are small, hand-picked and clearly overfitted on, or broad general claims that cannot be substantiated). I'm getting the feeling they don't have anything that materially sets them apart at all, but that's seems impossible to measure in any meaningful way, so who knows, they might have something here.