Surely the thing the AI giants fear the most in this respect must be the possibility that competitive open models and locally available hardware reach the point of viability for most people. If that happens then where is the moat for the giants?

If progress with frontier models doesn't continue at the same pace then the investments and funny money deals might start to look very fragile.

If progress does continue then that progress might be towards smaller models more than quantum steps up in quality or capability that would increase the risk of the scenario above.

All of this is set against a backdrop of public hostility and political problems that I can only imagine increasing in the near term as well.

This feels like an unusually high stakes game of poker. I don't think I'd want to bet on Big AI right now if I had a few billion lying around. Then again - maybe that's why I don't have a few billion lying around!