The only free tier of a major AI coding agent available to the public is actually GitHub Copilot; and this is troubling. AntiGravity is not that much polished, and cannot be integrated with tools like OpenCode. Open-source models like Code Llama exist, they either lack the polish of Copilot or require significant technical knowledge to self-host. The troubling thing is that alongside the downfall of the service based market in a country like Pakistan due to AI and no cheap AI tool available the freelance market is setup for a disaster.
Microsoft invested early into OpenAI which still gives it an advantage, as it can get the same models for a cheaper price, but this generous deal with OpenAI might end someday.
Microsoft’s policy of getting students and early adopters addicted to there free software and then increasing the price when demand is high enough is not a new thing, look at how Microsoft allowed third world countries to pirate windows and office. Google has also been trying to do the same thing, at the end of last year they gave student’s of Pakistani Universities Pro Gemini Subscription worth hundreds of dollars for free. You can confidently assume that more than half of the AI companies are working with the same strategy.
Furthermore, Microsoft is the only major company left to not publish there own models, even google, apple and other’s have done it. Yeah both google’s and apple’s AI are not that much good but they still are a backup plan if things go sideways, Microsoft doesn’t have a major one either.
If something actually goes sideways, shortage of GPU’s, AI bubble bursts or even the investor’s pressuring AI companies to hike up prices, the people in the developing nations which for the past decade relied on freelancing and the gig economy might loose there income, as they can’t compete with AI and they won’t have enough money to integrate AI into their own workflows.
If the market shifts this way, and it will, once the hype is gone, the investor money dries out, the age of free & good models will come to an end. Maybe the companies will bring localized pricing for specific countries e.g ChatGPT Go in India. But these kinds of software deals are common to be only available in attractive markets like India.
Another way out is hosting your own model’s, but that is absurd, most people don’t have that kind of hardware. Maybe communal or shared hardware for running models, or local small AI hosting services could be the way.
…..and that’s the key.
You know history repeats itself. When internet came into being, it almost started like this, with self hosting sites, port-forwarding, universities having their own mini-internet and much more. But this could take time and with the barrier to entry, high hardware prices and unstable global markets, democratizing AI might not be in time to save the day.