Regrettable, but did it take o3 mega pro to find out about real and nominal value? Even something a trivial as an iPhone is a far bigger purchase if you're not on a Bay Area salary.
I don't think it's got anything to do with ChatGPT, especially given that it has a generous free tier too, let alone a about much cheaper (than the pro) plus tier.
It's an international economy problem, not an AI problem.
someone has to pay for the servers at the end. are you asking for openai to subsidize ChatGPT Pro for low-income countries? Since OpenAI is for-profit entity focussed on profits, I don't think it might be a wise idea financially for OpenAI to do so.
One issue I have with the widely used metric of 'Productivity per hours worked' - if I have a second apt I rent out to Bob for $1000, I have a 'productivity' of $6.25 per hour 'worked', despite nobody producing anything and nobody working for any length of time.
A CS degree costs something like 124 yrs salary for someone in a low income nation—and it’s a much longer harder road. I’m not AI’s biggest fan, but arguably, this type of tech actually narrows the gap. Even if it’s expensive.
Albeit I'm no economist, I'm quite sure you should compare salaries to costs, not gdp/capita. Whether unemployed/retirees and children can afford a ChatGPT pro subscription seems irrelevant.
Let's take Madagascar, GDP per capita is $ 538. But the average salary is above $ 150/ month.
What interests us really though is not really the average salary in the country, rather the white collar (the end user's) worker's one.
In Madagascar software engineering salaries seems to range from an average $ 850/month for junior roles to well beyond $ 2000 per senior/specialized roles.
And this further ignores that such expenses are generally paid by employees, often with bulk discounts compared to B2C customers.
Which leads us to conclude that if ChatGPT Pro is such a performance multiplier, it is worth the price even in the poorest of the poorest countries in the world.
>I find this very troubling for two reasons. First, while Claude and OpenAI are new, Google has been around for a long time. It should have thought better about pricing so that the tool is within the reach of the developing world.
Why? I don't see a practical argument for why Google would want to offer this service at a massive loss.
So a handful of things here. One is that you can actually at the moment at least use a lot of it for free. Secondarily, I think when it comes to access to ChatGPT and other services, in a lot of low-income countries there's a much bigger hurdle than the money, which is a combination of language and device that is capable of connecting to ChatGPT. There are a lot of countries still where you're limited to feature phones or not even having a phone at all.
A warning about ChatGPT Pro. The 128k tokens context claim is deceptive advertising.
Messages above ~65k tokens are rejected. Messages between about 50k-65k are accepted, but the right-side of the text is pruned before the LLM call is made. Messages just below ~50k are accepted, but are then partly "forgot" on any follow up questions (either the entire first prompt is excluded, or the left-side of the text is chopped off).
Have a look at industrial accident data globally, considering underreporting in developing nations.
- Same, environmental accidents.
- Same, WMD proliferation, including chem, bio and nuclear.
- Same, malicious cyber.
Now, ask yourself if we have enough problems aligning & regulating AI at the moment?
Are we sure that in the name of laudable egalitarian ideals that we are prepared for the second and third order effects of broad global accessibility to AI, including frontier models?
So what? My salary pays for 2-3 developers in the UK, even more in India, and I am not necessarily any better than those developers. Should I feel bad for that as well?
Home computers were ridiculously expensive in their initial years. Some could cost more than a car. ChatGPT Pro gives you access to cutting edge technology so it isn't surprising that it's expensive.
Just remember that a Wal Mart $50 phone is faster than a supercomputer from the 70s/80s. Prices will go down.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 46.0 ms ] threadThere are still many countries where digital literacy is very low.
So first step is to ensure everyone has internet/mobile phone/laptop and knows how to use them.
It's an international economy problem, not an AI problem.
someone has to pay for the servers at the end. are you asking for openai to subsidize ChatGPT Pro for low-income countries? Since OpenAI is for-profit entity focussed on profits, I don't think it might be a wise idea financially for OpenAI to do so.
Median people from the Democratic Republic of Congo will have to work for 6 years to pay a PG&E bill.
Albeit I'm no economist, I'm quite sure you should compare salaries to costs, not gdp/capita. Whether unemployed/retirees and children can afford a ChatGPT pro subscription seems irrelevant.
Let's take Madagascar, GDP per capita is $ 538. But the average salary is above $ 150/ month.
What interests us really though is not really the average salary in the country, rather the white collar (the end user's) worker's one.
In Madagascar software engineering salaries seems to range from an average $ 850/month for junior roles to well beyond $ 2000 per senior/specialized roles.
And this further ignores that such expenses are generally paid by employees, often with bulk discounts compared to B2C customers.
Which leads us to conclude that if ChatGPT Pro is such a performance multiplier, it is worth the price even in the poorest of the poorest countries in the world.
Why? I don't see a practical argument for why Google would want to offer this service at a massive loss.
Messages above ~65k tokens are rejected. Messages between about 50k-65k are accepted, but the right-side of the text is pruned before the LLM call is made. Messages just below ~50k are accepted, but are then partly "forgot" on any follow up questions (either the entire first prompt is excluded, or the left-side of the text is chopped off).
Realistically, it's a 55-65k token limit (40k token question, 15k token response).
They want you to attach your context so they can use RAG.
I can't even be bothered filing a bug report, because I know this shit is intentional. The mistakes always run in a favorable direction.
(GPT-5-Pro is a genuinely good model however, and usage limits are generous)
But tbe chart on that page shows very high productivity
Seriously, what is the point of this observation? Few if any workers earning low wages have any use for a ChatGPT Pro subscription?
1. the companies don’t get any cheaper compute because a user is from a low-income country.
2. this is an AI subscription, it’s purely a luxury product. We do not need this to survive. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.
Have a look at industrial accident data globally, considering underreporting in developing nations.
- Same, environmental accidents.
- Same, WMD proliferation, including chem, bio and nuclear.
- Same, malicious cyber.
Now, ask yourself if we have enough problems aligning & regulating AI at the moment?
Are we sure that in the name of laudable egalitarian ideals that we are prepared for the second and third order effects of broad global accessibility to AI, including frontier models?
Just remember that a Wal Mart $50 phone is faster than a supercomputer from the 70s/80s. Prices will go down.
- The latest concept sports car costs a few lifetimes of income in low-income countries
- Aircraft carrier costs 200 GDP of Tuvalu