AI Industry Embraces Transformer Monoculture, Hindering Innovation

William Benzon argues the rapid consolidation of capital, talent, and compute around transformer-based LLMs since GPT-3 (June 2020) and ChatGPT (November 2023) has produced an industry monoculture. He cites venture-capital share rising from 23% in 2023 to nearly two-thirds in H1 2025, hyperscalers' $350 billion 2025 capex, and leadership moves as evidence this may stifle alternative research.