Google AI Ultra

The global average salary is somewhere in the region of $1500.

There’s lots of people and companies out there with $250 to spend on these subscriptions per seat, but on a global scale (where Google operates), these are pretty niche markets being targeted. That doesn’t align well with the multiple trillions of dollars in increased market cap we’ve seen over the last few years at Google, Nvda, MS etc.

New technology always starts off available to the elite and then slowly makes its way down to everyone. AI is no different.

This is one of those assumed truisms that turns out to be false upon close scrutiny, and there's a bit of survivorship bias in the sense that we tend to look at the technologies that had mass appeal and market forces to make them cheaper and available to all. But theres tons of new tech thats effectively unobtainable to the vast majority of populations, heck even nation states. With the current prohibitive costs (in terms of processing power, energy costs, data center costs) to train these next generation models, and the walled gardens that have been erected, there's no reason to believe the good stuff is going to get cheaper anytime soon, in my opinion.

> turns out to be false upon close scrutiny

Care to share that scrutiny?

Computers, internet, cell phones, smartphones, cameras, long distance communication, GPS, televisions, radios, refrigerators, cars, air travel, light bulbs, guns, books. Go back as far as you want and this still holds true. You think the the majority of the planet could afford any of these on day 1?

the point is not that AI services will be affordable "eventually" it's that the advantage is so crazy that people who don't have access to them will NEVER be able to catch up. First AI wrappers disrupt industries ->developing nations can't compete coz the services are priced prohibitively -> AI wrappers take over even more -> automation disrupts the need for anyone -> developing nations never develop further. this seems more and more likely not less. cutting edge GPUs for eg - already are going into the stratosphere pricing wise and are additionally being sanctioned off.