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Cloud compute has been completely commoditized. Yes, local models will get better and better, but I think for the vast majority it will continue to be both cheaper and more productive to use cloud based models, far into the future, where bulk purchasing, oversubscription, and discounted industrial electric rates can be taken advantage of.

Where I am, it's cheaper to purchase multiple claude subscriptions than it is for the power bill from running a local model. Factor in the hardware costs, and you're looking at a break over a decade in the future, for comparable cloud models. Yes, there's privacy, etc, but now you're down into fractions of a percent of users who care about the government reading the memory of their computer.

And if you're on a mobile device, any halfway powerful local model is going to cut your battery life way down.
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