I know pretty much anyone can technically run them. But come on man. You do not have the same resources to bring to bear that you are at least indirectly competing with. It doesn’t even come close. 
I’m not sure what you mean. FOSS generative image models are already better than the corpo paid for ones, and it isn’t even close. They’re more flexible and have way more features and tools than what you can get out of a discord bot or cloud computing subscription.
The combined corporate investment and interest in LLM‘s massively dwarfs what individuals are currently capable of doing. Yes, individuals can participate. Yes, sometimes it is better results. But to act like we have primary ownership of the situation, which is what you are heavily implying, is kind of ridiculous.  The playing field simply isn’t level and, if things don’t change, we will be the ones left holding the bag when it comes to social, cultural, and financial cost.
I know pretty much anyone can technically run them. But come on man. You do not have the same resources to bring to bear that you are at least indirectly competing with. It doesn’t even come close. 
I’m not sure what you mean. FOSS generative image models are already better than the corpo paid for ones, and it isn’t even close. They’re more flexible and have way more features and tools than what you can get out of a discord bot or cloud computing subscription.
You keep narrowing the scope of the discussion.
The combined corporate investment and interest in LLM‘s massively dwarfs what individuals are currently capable of doing. Yes, individuals can participate. Yes, sometimes it is better results. But to act like we have primary ownership of the situation, which is what you are heavily implying, is kind of ridiculous.  The playing field simply isn’t level and, if things don’t change, we will be the ones left holding the bag when it comes to social, cultural, and financial cost.