I'm just curious to know whether it's possible to crowdfund the compute costs for GPT models? It seems like this stuff is going to start to get beyond what any one individual can run, meaning it's in the hands of corporations or people with deep pockets. Can groups of people pool together money to run shared models? Because the alternative is that the companies just run away with the technology and leave the rest of us to wait for APIs or use whatever they give us.
Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
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Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#2I’d donate if the model and code became open source afterwards like stable diffusion.
Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#3Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#4Yes: https://github.com/bigscience-workshop/petals
Ah interesting. So I guess if they validate the thesis we could see a number of these right? Maybe co-op style, because you'd want some level of governance, not just, oh here's the cash and let's go run it, or oh hey let's bittorrent style do it but without vetting what stuff it's being used for e.g I don't want models being built for nefarious stuff on my computer.
Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#5I’d donate if the model and code became open source afterwards like stable diffusion.
Seconded.
Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#6Funny, I was asking myself the same question this morning, I was wondering if there was the equivalent of SETI@Home but to pool resources for model training.
Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#7Check out https://petals.ml/.
Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#8What type of hardware is needed as the bare bones for this?
Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#9It's no different from any other type of server I think? Crowdfunding compute comes with a lot of security and privacy concerns and often if you're building a product putting that part of it in the hands of someone reliable is preferable.
It depends on what part of what you're building is your core intellectual property and such.
I'll ask back: what products would you build on top of a crowdfunded-compute GPT like model?
Re: Ask HN: Can you crowdfund the compute for GPT?
#10Side hot take:
1. “AI” requires compute time for training (GPT, etc.) 2. If you use any “AI” service in the future, you could have to share idle computing power to improve that “AI.” 3. This may be tokenized via crypto. More contributions = more “AI” usage available for you.
Could the use of tokens or cryptocurrency incentivize participants to contribute their idle computing power to facilitate the process beyond those with deep pockets?