I don't think it's just that Claude-3 seems on par with GPT-4, but rather the development timescales involved.
Anthropic as a company was only created, with some of the core LLM team members from OpenAI, around the same time GPT-3 came out (Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's name is even on the GPT-3 "few-shot learners" paper). So, roughly speaking, in same time it took OpenAI (big established company, with lots of development momentum) to go from GPT-3 to GPT-4, Anthropic have gone from start-up with nothing to Claude-3 (via 1 & 2) which BEATS GPT-4. Clearly the pace of development at Anthropic is faster than that at OpenAI, and there is no OpenAI magic moat in play here.
Sure GPT-4 is a year old at this point, and OpenAI's next release (GPT-4.5 or 5) is going to be better than GPT-4 class models, but given Anthropic's momentum, the more interesting question is how long it will take Anthropic to match it or take the lead?
Inference cost is also an interesting issue... OpenAI have bet the farm on Microsoft, and Anthropic have gone with Amazon (AWS), who have built their own ML chips. I'd guess Athropic's inference cost is cheaper, maybe a lot cheaper. Can OpenAI compete with the cost of Claude-3 Haiku, which is getting rave reviews? It's input tokens are crazy cheap - $300 to input every word you'll ever speak in your entire life!
Claude may be beat GPT-4 right now, but I remember ChatGPT in March 2023 being leagues better. Over the past year, it’s gotten regressive, but faster.
Claude is also lacking web browsing and code interpreter. I’m sure those will come, but where will GPT be by then? ChatGPT also offers an extensive free tier with voice. Claude’s free plan caps you as a few messages every few hours.
Of course GPT-next should take the lead for a while, but with Anthropic, from a standing start, putting out 3 releases in same time it took OpenAI to put out 1, then how long is this lead going to last ?
It'll be interesting to see if Anthropic choose to match OpenAI feature-for-feature or just follow their own path.
Yeah, it's a good point, but I think that our intuitions are different on this one. I don't have a horse in this race, but my assumption is that the next OpenAI release will be a massive leap, that makes GPT 4/Claude 3 Opus look like toys. Perhaps you're right though, and Anthropic's curves with bend upward even more quickly, so that they get to that they'll start catching up more quickly, until eventually be they're ahead.
Honestly who knows, but outside of Q-star rumors there's no indication that either company is doing anything much different from the other one, so I'd not expect any long-lasting difference in capability to open up. Maybe it will, though!
FWIW, Sam Altman has fairly recently said that the jump from GPT-4 to GPT-5 will be similar to that from GPT-3 to GPT-4, and also (recent Lex Fridman interview) that their goal is explicitly NOT to have releases that are shocking - but rather they want to have ones of incremental capability to give society time to adapt. Could be misdirection - who knows.
Amodei for his part has said that what Anthropic will release in 2024 will be a "sharper, more refined" (or words to that effect) version of what they have now, and not a "reality bender" (which he seemed to be implying maybe is coming, but not for a year or two).
Anthropic as a company was only created, with some of the core LLM team members from OpenAI, around the same time GPT-3 came out (Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's name is even on the GPT-3 "few-shot learners" paper). So, roughly speaking, in same time it took OpenAI (big established company, with lots of development momentum) to go from GPT-3 to GPT-4, Anthropic have gone from start-up with nothing to Claude-3 (via 1 & 2) which BEATS GPT-4. Clearly the pace of development at Anthropic is faster than that at OpenAI, and there is no OpenAI magic moat in play here.
Sure GPT-4 is a year old at this point, and OpenAI's next release (GPT-4.5 or 5) is going to be better than GPT-4 class models, but given Anthropic's momentum, the more interesting question is how long it will take Anthropic to match it or take the lead?
Inference cost is also an interesting issue... OpenAI have bet the farm on Microsoft, and Anthropic have gone with Amazon (AWS), who have built their own ML chips. I'd guess Athropic's inference cost is cheaper, maybe a lot cheaper. Can OpenAI compete with the cost of Claude-3 Haiku, which is getting rave reviews? It's input tokens are crazy cheap - $300 to input every word you'll ever speak in your entire life!