Noncommercial use - aside from being one of my licensing pet peeves - seems to indicate that the money is drying up. My guess is that the investors over at Stability are tired of subsidizing the part of the generative AI market that OpenAI refuses to touch[0].
The thing is, I'm not entirely sure there's a paying portion of the market? Yes, I've heard of people paying for ChatGPT because it answers programming questions really well, but that's individual users, who are cost sensitive. The real money was supposed to be selling these things as worker replacement, but Hollywood unions have (rightfully) shut AI companies out of the markets where a machine that can write endless slop might have made lots of money.
OpenAI can remain in Microsoft's orbit for as long as the stupid altruist / accelerationist doomer debate doesn't tear them apart[1]. Google has at least a few more years of monopoly money before either the US breaks them up or the EU bankrupts them with fees. I don't know who the hell is pumping more money into either Anthropic or Stability.
[0] Porn. It's always porn. OpenAI doesn't want to touch it for very obvious reasons.
[1] For what it's worth, Microsoft has shown that all the AI safety guardrails can be ripped out by the money people at a moment's notice, given how quickly they were able to make the OpenAI board blink.
The thing is, I'm not entirely sure there's a paying portion of the market? Yes, I've heard of people paying for ChatGPT because it answers programming questions really well, but that's individual users, who are cost sensitive. The real money was supposed to be selling these things as worker replacement, but Hollywood unions have (rightfully) shut AI companies out of the markets where a machine that can write endless slop might have made lots of money.
OpenAI can remain in Microsoft's orbit for as long as the stupid altruist / accelerationist doomer debate doesn't tear them apart[1]. Google has at least a few more years of monopoly money before either the US breaks them up or the EU bankrupts them with fees. I don't know who the hell is pumping more money into either Anthropic or Stability.
[0] Porn. It's always porn. OpenAI doesn't want to touch it for very obvious reasons.
[1] For what it's worth, Microsoft has shown that all the AI safety guardrails can be ripped out by the money people at a moment's notice, given how quickly they were able to make the OpenAI board blink.