So you mean "Software" not "tech".
Re:GPT-4
by da_chicken on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @05:07PM
(#35174730)
That's the comment you should have responded with instead of the one that you did.
Upthread used the term "tech" when the thread is very clearly talking about AI. AI is software, but because they used the term "tech" you cherry-picked non-software tech as a counter example. It doesn't fit because the type of tech that GPT-4 represents doesn't have the manufacturing cost like a chip fab does. It's totally different in kind regardless of the fact that they're both termed "tech".
That is literally technology. It just isn’t as software heavy as you like?
Re:GPT-4
by da_chicken on Wednesday March 15, 2023 @05:02PM
(#35174676)
No, I think it's very clear that upthread is talking about how software is difficult to build a moat around.
Chip fabs are literally one of the most expensive facilities ever created. Saying that because they don't need a special moat so therefore nothing in tech ever needs a special moat is so willfully blind that it borders on disingenuity.
Most modern tech companies are software companies. To them, the means of production are a commodity server in a rack. It might be an expensive server, but that's actually dependent on scale. It might even be a personal computer on a desk, or a smartphone in a pocket. Further, while creating software is highly technical, duplicating it is probably the most trivial computing operation that exists. Not that distribution is trivial (although it certainly can be) just that if you have one copy of software or data, you have enough software or data for 8 billion people.