Running AI is so expensive that Amazon will probably charge you to use Alexa in future, says outgoing exec::In an interview with Bloomberg, Dave Limp said that he “absolutely” believes that Amazon will soon start charging a subscription fee for Alexa
Why?
Call it paranoia if you want. Mainly I don’t have faith in our economic system to deploy the technology in a way that doesn’t eviscerate the working class.
Oh, you are 100% justified in that! It’s terrifying, actually.
But what I am envisioning is using small, open source models installed on our phones that can answer questions or just keep us company. These would be completely private, controlled by the user only, and require no internet connection. We are already very close to this reality, local AI models can be run on Android phones, but the small AI “brains” that are best for phones are still pretty stupid (for now).
Of course, living in our current Capitalist Hellscape, it’s hard not to imagine that going awry to the point where we’ll all ‘rent’ AI from some asshole who spies on everything we do, censors the AI for our own ‘protection’, or puts ads in there somehow. But I guess I’m a dreamer.