But the two concerns I have are, what happens when someone uses it to make the projects I work on again but with one design change, and it this pulling up the ladder behind us? Will someone still be able to start a project five years from now and do what you’ve done? Or come into existing projects like I have?
This is the thing I hate most about AI. It is a huge shift in power towards big companies that have the capital to throw at it. And towards those few mega corporations that control the tech.
It's a big shift away from hobbyists, tinkerers and people exploring ideas on their own time.
Like... while the open source models are improving, does that converge with the fancy models with tons of money behind them?
My understanding of the economics of it - so far - is that "more computing resources leads to better results" and capital wins that game.
In the late 70s, personal computers were still like $4-8k (in today’s money). It wasn’t until the 90s when regular people started getting computers.
So there is one… just time.
I dont know what the future will look like, but IMO open source is the intersection of code and community (aka the squishy bits) and for that reason I dont think AI will make it obselete, not now nor in the future.