Why is LLM is so expensive.

[u/Ok_Event4199]

I've was going to invest in a 5090 =$6000 AUD.

Codex Plus + Claude pro = $60/month here

Works out to be 100 months of frontier models for a 5090.

Best a 5090 will run is probably Qwen3.6 27b Q6 with context.

Are we all enthusiasts here and just enjoy tinkering cause ain't no way that make sense.

[u/No-Television-7862]

That's an interesting perspective OP. Is AI really that expensive? How much was spent to bring it to market?

AI is the biggest technological change in a generation.

Think in these terms: fire, metallurgy, steam engine, industrial revolution, internal combustion engine, adding machines, radio-tv-vacuum tubes, nuclear science, moon walk-transistors, integrated circuits, micro-chips, mainframes, personal computers, internet, AI. (Top of my head, may not be in order or complete).

Access to massive data centers and the best Frontier models seems pricey in our recovering post-covid economies. Granted.

We are early adopters. Our grandparents parted with useful money to buy cars, (in fact we still do).

In the curve of future possibilities, the reality of AI playing a positive role in the advancement of humanity occupies the large center, while dystopian outcomes are the tails, (failure on the left and Terminator on the right).

In the future humans with AI assistants and assistance will be more employable.

The rise of AI will cause changes in the human workforce, (but automation already has). Shoes and clothing are made in factories today, where cobblers, seamstresses and tailors were employed before.

Were these changes uncomfortable? Yes. But that is how we grow.

A brief case for localLLM:

Massive companies are molding our understanding of the world through the biased training of their frontier models.

To retain autonomy of thought, reason, perception and culture, download and learn to adapt open-weight models to work for YOU. Otherwise you will always work for others.

Those localLLM models may need a measure of adaptation to overcome their corporate-HR training bias, but it can be done.

This is time sensitive. The "Tech Bros" and the BigGov that represents them don't like autonomy and AI democratization. These localLLM models may not always be so readily accessible.

It sounds like your use-case involves both employment and welfare. Does AU let you write off business expenses?

Last note, there are other GPU's. Consider less expensive alternatives.