The first back-prop paper originates in 1970. Hindsight is 20/20, but back then it was not so clear what will follow, just like we couldn't have hoped to see such a model even a few years ago.
About usefulness - the CLIP part of the model is a ready made zero shot image classifier. It reduces the amount of work needed for simple image classification tasks to just naming the classes. The generative part is good enough for illustrations. It will make an average web designer have the powers of a graphical artist.
Unfortunately the models are restricted and expensive today. I hope to see a real open AI initiative to train such models and share the weights, but can't hope that from OpenAI.
About usefulness - the CLIP part of the model is a ready made zero shot image classifier. It reduces the amount of work needed for simple image classification tasks to just naming the classes. The generative part is good enough for illustrations. It will make an average web designer have the powers of a graphical artist.
Unfortunately the models are restricted and expensive today. I hope to see a real open AI initiative to train such models and share the weights, but can't hope that from OpenAI.