The problem is advanced LLMs are controlled by large corporations. Powerful local models exist (in part thanks to Meta's generosity oddly enough) and they're close to GPT-3.5, but GPT-4 is far ahead of them and by the time other models reach to that point whatever OpenAI or Antropic, Meta etc. have developed behind closed doors could be significantly better. In that case open models will be restricted to niche uses and most people will use the latest model from a giant corp.

So it is possible that LLMs will centralize the production and dissemination of knowledge, which is the opposite of what people think the printing press did. I hope I'm wrong and open models can challenge/overtake state of the art models developed by tech giants, that would be amazing.