we slow down only when we have cash cows
The discussion revolves around whether AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI intentionally slow down innovation when they have profitable "cash cows." Anthropic's fable model, priced at 50$/1M output, and OpenAI's astra, now at a similar price, are cited as examples. The question is posed whether these companies would slow down if a cheaper, comparable model like grok emerged, or if they would prioritize cost optimization over their stated promises.
This discussion uniquely links the pricing strategies of Anthropic's fable and OpenAI's astra models to a broader debate about AI innovation slowdowns, unlike typical analyses focusing solely on technical advancements.
Time & source
Times shown in UTC
Display time zone: UTC
Local time zone unavailable; showing UTC.
PublishedOffset at this time: UTC+0Sep 12, 2026, 21:24 UTC
IngestedOffset at this time: UTC+0Sep 13, 2026, 15:00 UTC
- Published
- Sep 12, 2026, 21:24
- Ingested
- Sep 13, 2026, 15:00
- Source type
- Dev community
- Tier
- Community
- Source status
- Healthy
Tier is a per-source editorial setting, not a per-item score.
Anthropic had fable 50$/1M output and wanted to slow down
OpenAI agrees with now it cuz they dropped astra same price as fable now even elon is agreeing, if grok gets close to those models but came out way cheaper do u think they would slow down?
OpenAI managed to reduce lunas usage by a lot but not sols ofc very surprising
Question again is will they keep their promise? if better model comes out and its way cheaper will they slow down? or they someway accidentally finds a way to optimize their cost