There’s a thread of thought that pops up in pro-AI posters from time to time: technology can’t go backwards. The implication being that the current state of AI can only improve, and is here to stay.

This is wrong. Companies are spending multitudes of piles of cash to make AI work, and they could easily take their ball and go home. Extending copyright over the training data would likely trigger that, by the industry’s own admission.

No, self-hosted models are not going to change this. A bunch of people running around with their own little agents aren’t going to sustain a mass market phenomenon. You’re not going to have integration in Windows or VisualStudio or the top of Google search results. You’re not going to have people posting many pics on Facebook of Godzilla doing silly things.

The tech can go backwards, and we’re likely to see it.