As we continue to find ways to replicate these models and run them locally, OpenAI will be forced to find some additional value they can sell. For the time being, they can continue to pick low-hanging fruit and develop GPT-3.5 -> GPT-4 -> GPT-5, but at some point we'll probably hit a plateau. What's their business model when that happens? They have no moat.

I think they probably started out worried about safety and misinformation and nefarious actors, but I think this comment reveals their present intentions: "A thing that I do worry about is … we're not going to be the only creator of this technology. There will be other people who don't put some of the safety limits that we put on it."

Translation: "the competition will be able to duplicate our efforts, and we may not have any way to keep ahead of the pack. Please, pretty please, worry about safety so that we can sell you our safety tools."