Can someone explain why I am being downvoted and attacked in this thread? I swear I am not sealioning. Genuinely confused.

@sc_griffith@awful.systems asked how request frequency might impact cost per request. Batch inference is a reason (ask anyone in the self-hosted LLM community). I noted that this reason only applies at very small scale, probably much smaller than what OpenAI is operating at.

@dgerard@awful.systems why did you say I am demanding someone disprove the assertion? Are you misunderstanding “I would be very very surprised if they couldn’t fill [the optimal batch size] for any few-seconds window” to mean “I would be very very surprised if they are not profitable”?

The tweet I linked shows that good LLMs can be much cheaper. I am saying that OpenAI is very inefficient and thus economically “cooked”, as the post title will have it. How does this make me FYGM? @froztbyte@awful.systems

What? I’m not doubting what he said. Just surprised. Look at this. I really hope Sam IPO his company so I can short it.

LLM inference can be batched, reducing the cost per request. If you have too few customers, you can’t fill the optimal batch size.

That said, the optimal batch size on today’s hardware is not big (<20). I would be very very surprised if they couldn’t fill it for any few-seconds window.