AI planned obsolescence: vendors hold a benchmark-invisible downgrade knob
maier_ak · x · 2026-10-01
Andreas Maier draws a parallel between today's AI industry and the 1925 Phoebus lightbulb cartel. The scandal wasn't that a trade-off existed (lifetime vs efficiency), but that sellers decided it centrally without telling buyers. He argues AI vendors likewise hold a hidden "downgrade knob" upstream of every benchmark outsiders can run — absence of degradation on public benchmarks is not evidence of absence, much like Volkswagen passing official emissions tests.
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