The idea that OpenAI—or any tech giant—will dominate AI stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how transformative technologies evolve. In the AOL era, many believed the internet would simply replicate existing media power structures: centralized, corporate-controlled, and dominated by a few players. That’s why the AOL/Time Warner merger seemed so logical at the time—it was a bet on the internet becoming a bigger, digital version of cable TV.

Similarly, today’s assumptions about AI dominance rest on the notion that whoever builds the most powerful models will control the market. OpenAI and Microsoft evoke comparisons to AOL and Time Warner, while Meta’s and Google’s models are also breathtakingly advanced and expensive, requiring billions of dollars in compute and years of research.

However, the recent emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI model developed for a fraction of the cost of these systems, has sparked discussions about possible Chinese dominance in the space. This, too, reflects a misguided assumption.

The real lesson is that lower-cost models are inevitable. They signal a shift toward a more open and distributed AI ecosystem, much like the early internet. Just as launching a website in the 2000s cost a fraction of what it took to produce traditional media, AI is becoming increasingly accessible to innovators at home and around the world. This process has the potential to unlock entirely new industries and far more interesting possibilities than an automated AOL chat room.