For individuals, this is a very short window of time where we have cheap access to an actually useful, and relatively unshackled SOTA model[0]. This is the rare time individuals can empower themselves, become briefly better at whatever it is they're doing, expand their skills, cut through tedium, let their creativity bloom. It's only a matter of time before many a corporation and startup parcel it all between themselves, enshittify the living shit out of AI, disenfranchise individuals again and sell them as services what they just took away.

No, it's exactly the individuals who can't afford to live "2 years behind". Benefits are too great, and worst that can happen is... going back to where one is now.

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[0] - I'm not talking the political bias and using the idea of alignment to give undue weigh to corporate reputation management issues. I'm talking about gutting the functionality to establish revenue channels. Like, imagine ChatGPT telling you it won't help you with your programming question, until you subscribe to Premium Dev Package for $language, or All Seasons Pass for all languages.