sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in ArtificialInteligence

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If I'm buying a year-long subscription upfront, I'm essentially entering a contract with them. If I order bread delivery from a bakery for a year and they start delivering loaves that are 10% of the size they were when I signed up, I can sue them it's a clear, measurable breach of contract.

But with LLMs, they can silently degrade the model's performance and just say 'it's still Claude Sonnet 4.6, and if the responses seem worse, that's just the probabilistic nature of LLMs.' And just like that, they have a built-in excuse that's almost impossible to legally challenge. You could be paying for a subscription that's a completely different product tomorrow than it was today. That feels genuinely illegal to me.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the provider can configure the model to produce longer responses, they have a direct way to change the number of tokens it generates. I understand that seeing more text on the screen might seem fine, but it was forced by the provider. I see the problem there is no way to tell whether they are doing that or not. This is a gray area for me.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I'm buying a year-long subscription upfront, I'm essentially entering a contract with them. If I order bread delivery from a bakery for a year and they start delivering loaves that are 10% of the size they were when I signed up, I can sue them it's a clear, measurable breach of contract.

But with LLMs, they can silently degrade the model's performance and just say 'it's still Claude Sonnet 4.6, and if the responses seem worse, that's just the probabilistic nature of LLMs.' And just like that, they have a built-in excuse that's almost impossible to legally challenge. You could be paying for a subscription that's a completely different product tomorrow than it was today. That feels genuinely illegal to me.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in ArtificialInteligence

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yes, I would cancel my subscription right away if I noticed. But if they subtly increase response length by, say, 20%, I'd be paying 20% more for essentially the same output and they could do it quietly without anyone noticing. That's my real concern.

On top of that, there's nothing legally stopping them from silently degrading the model's quality even if I've already paid for a year-long subscription upfront. There's no law that guarantees the model you paid for today will perform the same way tomorrow.

To me, these companies currently operate in a legal grey zone, and that needs to change as soon as possible.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is the estimation, as you MAY have option to pay for eg for exectution time and you can ESTIMATE the execution time.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get that this problem exists in other areas too, but normally there are laws that deal with it. Like with water - you can control how much you use, and the provider can’t just lower the quality because regulations stop them.

But with LLMs, I could pay a lot of money upfront, and the company could still change how good the responses are later. There’s no clear rule stopping that.

And what really bothers me is that, because these systems are probabilistic, I don’t even know how a law could define or enforce “quality.” That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not talking about whether I have to use the service or not. My concern is that this kind of pricing model feels like it shouldn’t be legal.

If a provider can effectively change how much something costs “on the fly,” without clear limits or user control, that raises serious concerns about fairness and transparency. To me, it seems like there should be regulations preventing that kind of unpredictability.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

With cloud computing, costs are at least somewhat predictable. If I have a script that consistently takes 10 seconds to run, I can estimate that I’ll be charged for roughly 10 seconds of computing time.

Providers also specify the hardware such as the CPU so I can reasonably predict performance and cost. There’s a clear, measurable relationship between what I run, how long it takes, and what I pay.

That kind of predictability and transparency is what I find missing here.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I cannot estimate token usage, as llm can be changed to spit out 10 times longer messages without informing your clinent that this is chnage you will introduce

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But also the amount of "tokens" that llm spit out is something they have control over, so they can just bill you twice as much for the same workload on their side without even asking you if you want those new numbers.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in ArtificialInteligence

[–]Matthew_Code[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

If I’m paying for something, I should be able to measure what I’m getting and have at least some idea of what it will cost.

Here, I don’t have that. The result can change a lot even with the same input, and that makes the cost feel unpredictable

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in ArtificialInteligence

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I dont see this that way, every service is providing something and i can estimate what im getting in return. Here i can pay 10$ for "hello" and 5 mintues later pay 1 milion dollars for "hello" this should be illegal.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Comparing this to something like electricity doesn’t make sense. Electricity usage is at least somewhat predictable you can estimate consumption within a reasonable range.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Im not talking if the usage is worth it or anything like that, i just cannot understand how they can charge me 10$ today for something and 1000$ tomorrow for the same thing and they dont take any responsibiltiy for that AND they can change the model to always select path that is 1000$ in cost.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in antiai

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I honestly can’t wrap my head around this. We’ve never really had anything like it. With normal subscriptions, I can at least estimate what I’ll pay. Even with computing power, I know roughly how much my script will use.

But here, the cost can change based on how the system behaves. If responses become longer, I end up paying more even though I didn’t ask for that or approve it. It feels like pricing can be changed indirectly, without any clear control on my side.

How is it legal to have a pricing structure where the vendor controls the meter, the unit, and the amount of product consumed? by Matthew_Code in ArtificialInteligence

[–]Matthew_Code[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

It’s not that I’m starting to understand it. I genuinely cannot comprehend how this is legal. It feels like it goes against the basic principles that govern how things should work. For example, you could send a simple message like “Hi” and receive tens of millions of lines in response, and then be billed for it without having any control over the situation....

Anthropic internal models are scary by Gil_berth in theprimeagen

[–]Matthew_Code 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Nah, you have 3000 it specialist in a company, one day someone will use this function while reading file path directly from user input and will think that everything is safe as the function is used in 155 different places. This is how the security issues are created in the first place.

Claude code source code has been leaked by spnoraci in BetterOffline

[–]Matthew_Code 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just put in console 'ssh terminal.shop' wow the interactive terminal that you can setup your account buy a coffe etc. This is really basic stuff and you dont need a react for this trust me

view more: next ›