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Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

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121–130 of 206 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This point is understated. So many people are going around like "I'm building an AI app!" when the reality is, OpenAI built an AI app, you're just designing a front end for it.

OpenAI builds an LLM and an api-interface to that model. The design of abstractions, prompt engineering, custom fine-tunes and software engineering required to ship a valuable application on top of that interface counts as "building an app" in my book.

while this is technically correct, difference is that your product won't survive without openai at this point. If you need the model quality openai provides you are stuck and your product can just disappear. Because llm is core building block, irreplaceable one.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#122
post #97
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess there really is a moat.

Just to nitpick that a bit, they have a lead. To me, a moat is some other axis of advantage that makes it hard for a rival to compete directly. So for example Tesla has/had a lead in EV tech, but their supercharger network is a moat because it’s very difficult for a rival to compete with, even if they have equivalent EV tech. I know there isn’t established terminology for this. It is a nitpick, but I think a lead is…

So like, would that not suggest that Google has a moat with AI, as it is already intertwined with our email, calendars, etc... (if they ever make their AI public)

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#123
post #93

There is a model that was just released called falcon-40B that is available for commercial user. It outperforms every other open LLM model available today. Buyer beware, however, because the license is custom[1] and has restrictions for "attributable revenues" over $1M/year. I'll leave that for you to interpret as you will. [0]: https://huggingface.co/tiiuae/falcon-40b-instruct [1]: https://huggingface.co/tiiuae/falc…

>Buyer beware, however, because the license is custom and has restrictions for "attributable revenues" over $1M/year.

It's more than that, it requires permission in advance and royalty payments (art. 8). See also attribution requirements in art. 5. Arguably, any license could be waived - it should be possible to write to Meta for permission as well, so it's not in a much better state than Llama itself for commercial use.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#124
You can fine tune a open source model for your task and achieve better results, at least, instead of just using them directly. But they are still not close to the openai models in generality. Huggingface is the place for exploring models, recently went through a lot of them for my use case, and they are simply not good enough, yet.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI builds an LLM and an api-interface to that model. The design of abstractions, prompt engineering, custom fine-tunes and software engineering required to ship a valuable application on top of that interface counts as "building an app" in my book.

The LLM _is_ the product. Everything else in the stack is window dressing. I don’t think OpenAI’s contribution should be so understated- they built a technology that was considered science fiction just a few years ago. They deserve all the credit for the “AI”.

Good luck building a moat when 95% of your app is just calling the API everyone else has access to.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there are benchmarks, but I can informally second that opinion. I'm building a writing app (chiseleditor.com) and there is nothing as good as the ChatGPT models right now.

Have you tried Anthropic, specifically Claude? I have no doubt GPT-4 is still king, I'm just curious how much of a lead it has.

No, I would love to try it out but unfortunately I don't have early access yet.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#127
post #56

There is literally no alternative. You’re stuck with openai, and you’re stuck with whatever rules, limitations or changes they give you. There are other models, but specifically if you’re actively using gpt-4 and find gpt-3.5 to be below the quality you require… Too bad. You’re out of luck. Wait for better open source models or wait patiently for someone to release a meaningful competitor, or wait for openai to relea…

Guess there really is a moat.

Yes, no one can build a car from scratch in their garage, but there are plenty of companies with enough capital to build their own cars and sell them to people.

OpenAI has a lead on Bard, LLaMA and friends, but I would expect that to close in the next few months or years.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#128

The best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4 is a (self hosted) GPT-X variant by OpenAI. No kidding, and I am calling it on the record right here. OpenAI will release an 'open source' model to try and recoup their moat in the self hosted / local space. https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/openai-readies-new-...

Does it benefit OpenAI if people are using an "open source" OpenAI model versus any other "open source" model?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The LLM _is_ the product. Everything else in the stack is window dressing. I don’t think OpenAI’s contribution should be so understated- they built a technology that was considered science fiction just a few years ago. They deserve all the credit for the “AI”.

Good luck building a moat when 95% of your app is just calling the API everyone else has access to.

100% of all existing code is just calling an OS-API that everyone else has access to. That's just nonsense

Re: Ask HN: What's the best self hosted/local alternative to GPT-4?

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, ChatGPT isn't a technology, it is a service.

That was never in question. ChatGPT is openAIs web frontend for several of their GPT-Models. The technology is just GPT and transformers, the open source alternatives are just not as advanced as the GPT4 model yet. It might change with current trajectory, mainly because OpenAI keeps nerfing it.

The technology is in the hardware/software synergy.
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