[morkalork]

I commute on the train, I see students studying with it. I go for brunch on the weekend, I see parents consulting it while at the table with their infants. I'm at work, colleagues are using it all day. I leave work and I overhear the random woman smoking in the alleyway talking on her cellphone saying "so I asked chatgpt". It's mind-bogglingly pervasive, the last time something had such a seizmic cultural impact like this was I dunno, Facebook? And secondly, it's all one specific brand. I'm not encountering co-pilot or gemini in the meat-space.

[SecretDreams]

Chatgpt is like "Jeep". My grandmother calls every suv a jeep. But they're not all jeeps. AI looks like chatgpt, but people are driving all sorts of different AIs.

I would guess OAI has no moat or stickiness beyond what governments and private companies will do to keep it afloat through equity and circular financing. Good enough AI is all most need, and they need it at the cheapest cost basis possible with the most convenient access.

Google will probably win on most of these fronts unless a coalition is formed to actively fight google at the business/government level. But, absent that, it will win out over oai and oai will probably bleed to death trying to become profitable.. whenever that happens. You'll likely see their talent and corresponding salaries shrink massively along this journey.

[esafak]

And if you're Boris Johnson, it's pronounced like 'jeep' too!

[boxedemp]

My sister uses Gemini and calls it chat gpt. It's becoming a genericide.

[simonw]

I still think it's hilarious that a product name as awful as "ChatGPT" has become so ubiquitous.

I wonder what percentage of its users know what the GPT stands for, or even thought about it for a second?

[GCUMstlyHarmls]

My aunt calls it "chat", "I asked chat", which is funny to my online-brain. Like she's a streamer with a permanent audience of 1. Hey chat, is this real?^1

1. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/chat-is-this-real

[swexbe]

OpenAIs investors can look forward to having an operating margin as impressive as the company that produces Band-Aid

[goolz]

How many of those people are paying? I think many say “use ChatGPT” to mean any LLM. As you noted it seems you just see ChatGPT in the wild but that is anecdotal. It is certainly pervasive right now. But I know a lot of people currently switching to Gemini.

I personally prefer claude models for all my work. If I were them I would be very worried. They are never giving us AGI and I am skeptical they are worth .5 trillion. Their cash burn is insane. Once ads and price hikes come, people will migrate to companies that can still afford to subsidize (like Google).

Plus I heard they lowered projections recently? Sam honestly comes off as a grifter.

[hattmall]

I'm very similar to the OP here, always hear about ChatGPT rarely anything else. Most people are definitely not paying, but of the few that are paying, outside of software developers, they are all paying for ChatGPT exclusively. I don't know of anyone paying for the basic chat versions of other AIs. A few developers paying for Claude and Gemini, but I know hundreds of people that talk of ChatGPT and no other AI, again most not paying though.

[morkalork]

Is it anecdotal? The observation isn't _my_ experience using it, or of _my friends_. I have no influence over who I see in public using it. I know it's not exactly a scientific study but it's still pretty damn good as a random sample. If I went outside and saw the sky was dark, cloudy and my face got wet, would you tell me it was anecdotal evidence when I say it's raining out?

[hyperbovine]

Gemini is nearly unusable thanks to “subsidies”. I honestly don’t see what the path is to these companies making any money short of massive price hikes, or electricity suddenly becoming free.

[jen20]

I actually encountered this today - one of a group I am planning a trip with posted some of the breathless nonsense that ChatGPT produced ("you're not picking a hotel, you're picking a group dynamic..." and other such textual diarrhea).

It turned out the only reason ChatGPT was because it is free for small enough volume usage. My suggestion to see what Claude had to say instead was met with "huh, you have to pay for it?". It's not like these are people that can't afford $20 per month for a subscription, but it might be that these assistants aren't even worth that for typical "normie" use cases.