I wish we didn’t live in a world with such strong economies of scale of intelligence (because I’m worried about power concentration).
Words found on the source page on Nov 6, 2026.
More from Dwarkesh Patel
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Continual learning will create a clear moat for leading AI labs that they currently lack.Essay8 Predictions for the Era of Continual LearningAug 7, 2026
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If you want to change what AI you are using, you basically have to fire an employee that has months of context on your organization and replace them with a fresh one that you have to retrain from scratch.Essay8 Predictions for the Era of Continual LearningAug 7, 2026
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When deployment becomes part of training, the returns to being ahead will accelerate.EssayWhy compute might get 10x+ more expensive in coming yearsJul 29, 2026
I want to emphasize the key conclusion here: as AI models become smarter, they’ll better monetize the same amount of compute. If a true human-level software engineer that could run on an H100 equivalent, at current market rates for software engineers, that H100 should rent for over $250k a year.EssayWhy compute might get 10x+ more expensive in coming yearsJul 29, 2026
If by 2028 we’ve automated software engineering and the price of compute is 15x higher than it is right now, then it’s going to be much more difficult for you, with no revenue, to compete for compute against the frontier labs.EssayWhy compute might get 10x+ more expensive in coming yearsJul 29, 2026
If you’re spending most of your compute on inference, you’re kind of declaring that AI progress has stalled, because it’s not worth investing more in training, and your business is basically that of a cloud provider.EssayThe data black hole at the center of AIJun 19, 2026
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But in the real world, power is more the product of having the authority and trust to get lots of people to collaborate with you, rather than some galaxy brain scheming capability.EssayThe mistake of conflating intelligence and powerMay 16, 2026
I’m simply pointing out that the way AI systems are currently becoming smarter (by getting trained to be to be really good at specific economically valuable tasks like coding) is not that strongly correlated with power.
On the same topics
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The race is not a law of nature: it is the product of choices, choices made by the companies themselves.
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