The Rapidly Decreasing Costs of AI and the Power of Smart Brevity

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Sep 25, 2023
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The Rapidly Decreasing Costs of AI and the Power of Smart Brevity
In today's fast-paced world, attention spans are shrinking, and reader habits are shifting. People are constantly overwhelmed, checking messages 70-400 times a day, and they often feel under-informed, missing critical context. Long, impenetrable updates are frequently ignored, and individuals are tight on time, spending an average of only 26 seconds reading any given piece of content. With such limited time and attention, it is crucial to capture the reader's interest within the first 17 milliseconds.
Databricks, a company focused on helping companies adopt machine learning, recently acquired Mosaic, a company that aims to make it cost-effective for businesses to train and fine-tune their own models. This acquisition aligns perfectly with Databricks' vision of enabling companies to rapidly adopt machine learning and stay ahead of the competition. The training costs for AI models have decreased significantly in recent years, with a 10x reduction in less than a year. For example, it now costs $50k to train a stable diffusion model and $200k to train a high-quality LLM model. MosaicML, in particular, has made substantial algorithmic improvements, allowing them to train stable diffusion models for only $50k. Additionally, GPU costs have decreased by 3x in approximately three years. These factors combined have led to a downward trend in the cost of training AI models.
The decreasing costs of AI training have several implications. Firstly, it opens doors for more model providers to enter the market, leading to increased competition at the model layer. As a result, pricing pressure is placed on closed-source model providers, potentially driving more companies to opt for open-source alternatives. This shift towards open-source models not only reduces costs but also promotes collaboration and innovation within the AI community.
Furthermore, the cost of inference, or the process of using a trained model to make predictions, has also decreased significantly. In just 16 months, inference costs have dropped by 10x, making it more accessible for companies to leverage AI capabilities in their products and services. However, it is important to note that while AI features are becoming more affordable, they still add to the overall cloud costs that companies incur. As a benchmark, most SaaS companies aim for 80% gross margins, with cloud costs accounting for approximately 10% of their revenue. Therefore, businesses must carefully balance their investment in AI features with the overall cloud costs they bear.
In parallel with the decreasing costs of AI, the concept of Smart Brevity, popularized by Axios, has emerged as a powerful communication tool. Smart Brevity recognizes that reader attention spans are limited, and the ability to convey information concisely is essential. The key elements of Smart Brevity include white space, bolding, and bullets, which help break through the haze of information overload and capture the reader's interest. Eye-tracking labs and extensive testing have shown that these formatting techniques can reduce read times by 50% on average.
To effectively utilize Smart Brevity, it is crucial to prioritize the needs of the audience over personal desires. Focus on delivering what the readers need rather than what you want to say. Cut out any non-essential information and distill the most important detail into a single sentence, which should always be presented first. By using a subject-verb-object structure and employing tight sentences and muscular words, readers can quickly grasp the main point of the message. Short paragraphs, bolding, and bullets also play a crucial role in pulling readers in and enabling them to absorb information more efficiently.
In conclusion, the decreasing costs of AI training, coupled with the power of Smart Brevity, have significant implications for businesses and communication strategies. Companies can now train and fine-tune AI models at a fraction of the previous cost, enabling more widespread adoption and fostering competition in the model provider market. At the same time, Smart Brevity allows individuals and organizations to communicate effectively in a world where attention spans are shrinking. To leverage these trends, businesses should consider embracing open-source model providers, carefully balance their investment in AI features with overall cloud costs, and adopt Smart Brevity principles to engage and inform their audience more efficiently.
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