In this case I think it's Wired that's lying. Altman didn't say large models have no value, or that there will be no more large models, or that people shouldn't invest in large models.
He said that we are at the end of the era where capability improvements come primarily from making models bigger. Which stands to reason... I don't think anyone expect us to hit 100T parameters or anything.
But just look at what all Lincoln accomplished with 640KB of memory. In the grand examination of time, one might even say that Lincoln is a more important figure than ChatGPT itself.
Like Altman said, it's comparable to the GHz race in the 1990's. If 4GHz is good, 5GHz is better, why not 10GHz?
Turns out there are diminishing returns and advances come from other dimensions. I've got no opinion on whether he's right or not, but he's certainly in a better position to opine that current scale has hit diminishing returns.
In any event, there's nothing special about 1T parameters. It's just a round base-10 number. It is no more magic than 900B or 1.3T.
He said that we are at the end of the era where capability improvements come primarily from making models bigger. Which stands to reason... I don't think anyone expect us to hit 100T parameters or anything.