Sam Altman: “$30k to get a simple iPhone app created, $300 for a plumbing job” (opens in new tab)

Really weird comparison. The type of job isn't specified even, but for $300 it had to be tiny. Probably a small fix.

So compare that plumbing job to say, fixing a bug in code, and you'll be a lot closer. Or go the other way and compare building an app from scratch to plumbing a house from scratch, and again will be a lot closer.

Plumbers in my parts charge about hourly what a dev makes. Making an app just takes a lot longer than whatever plumbing job is being referenced.

Such a vapid statement. Plumbing a new house will cost tens of thousands of dollars, and a developer's billed time to fix a bug (whatever the programming equivalent of a leaky faucet is) could be under $300.

As someone who has done coding and hired coders, things that seem simple can be deceptively hard. Even the simplest stuff can take forever to figure out, things like caching. It's not that irrational it costs so much. How many people can code well? Very few due to cognitive barriers to entry, yet it's a very highly economically valued skill (top 5 tech companies worth trillions). Many more people can learn how to do plumbing, hence more supply, but less economic value although plumbers are important.

It costs $30k to get exterior sewer main line replaced in many places in CA. I can get a simple iPhone app made on Fiverr for $300

This comparison makes no sense.

Huh. A guy hawking snake oil trying to push his product.

I can do that basic $300 plumbing job as a developer, but the plumbers I know couldn't do a 30k development project.

What a poor comparison.

I don't understand why this guy is the CEO of OpenAI.

$30k seems grotesquely high, although I do agree with the point. I'm not sure how much of it is to do with supply vs demand (there being a lesser quantity of software engineers experienced in capable of making apps vs plumbers) and how much of that is just artificially inflated, but I imagine it's some combination of both.

Most comments in this thread seems to be completely missing the point.

Imagine instead, three years ago, before ChatGPT and Dall-E, he tweeted something like:

“”” 2019: $30,000 to (produce real game assets out of my programmer art sketches)|(write a well researched biography)|(animate a short film)|(narrate my documentary), $300 for a plumbing job.

i wonder what those relative prices will look like in 2028! “””

We’re not there yet, but already it’s pretty clear the prices of the former will decrease dramatically, to the point it takes a similar amount of human effort, training, skill, and experience as the plumbing job - then perhaps get even easier!

It is interesting to think why most other comments try to pick apart the original tweet instead

I have no idea what he is trying to say. That the $30K iPhone app is too expensive? That the prices of the two jobs will diverge more over the next five years? Or the reverse?

Price of implementing GPT? 300$

Price of training GPT? 30k$

I can create a simple iPhone app for $50.