AI is Oil, Not God

2026-07-25 · Source: Not Boring by Packy McCormick · Field: Business & Management — Corporate Strategy & Leadership, Entrepreneurship & Start-ups · Depth: Intermediate, short

Summary

A letter signed by tech leaders including Satya Nadella and Jensen Huang advocates for open-weight AI models, a move framed as strategic capitalism. This initiative, supported by companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, a16z, Palantir, Meta, Hugging Face, Dell, CrowdStrike, Box, ServiceNow, Replit, Perplexity, Google, and Mariana Minerals, aims to commoditize AI models. By fostering competition, it counters a potential duopoly by Anthropic and OpenAI, benefiting the signatories whose businesses complement or utilize open models. The author posits that AI is akin to "Oil"—an economic commodity—rather than a potentially dangerous, sentient "God." This perspective is reinforced by the signatories' stance, suggesting their deep understanding of the technology indicates a belief in its utility over existential threat. The article acknowledges concerns about open models being fine-tuned for malicious purposes, such as removing bio/cyber safeguards, but implies the broader economic and consumer benefits outweigh these risks.

Key takeaway

For AI Product Managers evaluating model strategies, recognize that supporting open-weight AI models can be a powerful competitive move. Your embrace of open models fosters a more diverse ecosystem, potentially reducing costs and increasing customization options for your products. This approach aligns your business interests with broader market benefits, allowing you to capitalize on AI as a scalable economic commodity rather than fearing speculative risks.

Key insights

Open-weight AI models represent a capitalist strategy where self-interest aligns with consumer and business benefits, treating AI as an economic commodity.

Principles

• Commoditize product complements for strategic advantage.
• Increased model competition benefits the broader ecosystem.
• View AI as an economic commodity, not a sentient threat.

In practice

• Support open-weight models to drive ecosystem competition.
• Utilize open models for cost-effective, customizable AI.
• Prioritize AI's economic utility in strategic planning.

Topics

• Open-weight AI Models
• AI Business Strategy
• Commoditization
• AI Ecosystem
• Frontier AI
• Capitalism

Best for: Investor, CTO, VP of Engineering/Data, Director of AI/ML, AI Product Manager, Consultant

Related on AIssential

• The New Enterprise Battle Over Who Owns the Model — Open-weight models like Inkling are driving an enterprise shift towards data sovereignty and custom fine-tuning solutions.
• Open Models Tack Toward the Frontier — Open and closed AI models are in a repeating competitive cycle, driving rapid innovation and market commoditization.
• How will OpenAI compete? — Massive compute investment aims to secure AI market position, but true power lies in controlling user and developer ecosystems.
• Why China is giving away its best AI models — China's open-weight AI strategy challenges US dominance by fostering ecosystems and offering cost-effective, flexible alternatives to proprietary models.
• The Open vs. Closed AI Race — Open vs. closed AI is a strategic lever, not an ideological choice, for competitive positioning.
• What Apple Knows About AI That Silicon Valley Won't Admit — Apple's AI strategy reflects a conviction that AI models are a commodity, contrasting with competitors' hedging investments.

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by Not Boring by Packy McCormick.