All of the labs would rather not have to give access to the top-of-the-line models via general API.

· Bits and Bobs 4/20/26
  • All of the labs would rather not have to give access to the top-of-the-line models via general API.
    • We were locked into this equilibrium thanks to the accident that ChatGPT came out after OpenAI had already released a completion API.
    • The amount of value that can be extracted from LLMs is extremely variable in different verticals.
    • A general-purpose API has to be priced at the median amount of value across verticals.
    • But the amount of value that could be extracted for, say, cancer drug discovery, is way more.
    • The labs would rather be able to do price discrimination by having vertical-specific APIs.
    • Mythos is a first step in this direction.
    • It can't be generally released for safety reasons… which also conveniently means that it can only be released to specific customers under specific negotiated terms.
    • They'd be silly to not have use-case-specific pricing in that world.

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