> Why aren't tech folks sipping tequilas on the beach?

Because the environment mentioned earlier in the post - Silicon Valley - has absolutely nothing to offer but value creation. The people who rise up to leadership and success in that environment aren't particularly awesome human beings. The point isn't to make it better to be a human, it's to make all of the money.

All of the discussion about open models here of late offers a backdrop for what OpenAI was supposed to be versus what it turned out to be, and that offers a pretty good demonstration of the problem. Originally OpenAI was supposed to be a public benefit corporation that offered open models with a focus on ethics and safety. Their investors could expect "only" 100x return on their buy-in.

That, of course, didn't fill up the pockets of investors in SV to their liking, so the models became closed, the focus on safety and ethics went out the window, and the company became a typical for-profit corporation. The bet is now that they can hyperscale the deployment of closed models in a way that will generate an absolutely enormous amount of revenue and pay off the training and serving costs.

Meanwhile, Chinese developers of open models are taking the role that OpenAI was supposed to fulfill, with the obvious intent of undermining OpenAI and its ilk. They'll likely succeed, at least to some extent.

AI as it is now, at least in the major US labs based in SV, is almost purely for profit. The bet is huge and there can't be room for a penny to not be earned, for that tequila on a beach. It's an all-consuming philosophy in that region. If we want to see AI in the US have a sustainable path, you'll have to toss the people from that regional echo chamber. Maybe that'll happen if the monetary losses are big enough. Maybe not.