so that North Korea will create small call centers for cheaper, since they can get these models for free?
Open source AI is the path forward
11–20 of 936 posts
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#12"Eventually though, open source Linux gained popularity – initially because it allowed developers to modify its code however they wanted ..."
I find the language around "open source AI" to be confusing. With "open source" there's usually "source" to open, right? As in, there is human legible code that can be read and modified by the user? If so, then how can current ML models be open source? They're very large matrices that are, for the most part, inscrutable to the user. They seem akin to binaries, which, yes, can be modified by the user, but are extremely obscured to the user, and require enormous effort to understand and effectively modify.
"Open source" code is not just code that isn't executed remotely over an API, and it seems like maybe its being conflated with that here?
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#13This is obviously good news, but __personally__ I feel the open-source models are just trying to catch up with whoever the market leader is, based on some benchmarks.
The actual problem is running these models. Very few companies can afford the hardware to run these models privately. If you run them in the cloud, then I don't see any potential financial gain for any company to fine-tune these huge models just to catch up with OpenAI or Anthropic, when you can probably get a much better deal by fine-tuning the closed-source models.
Also this point:
> We need to protect our data. Many organizations handle sensitive data that they need to secure and can’t send to closed models over cloud APIs.
First, it's ironic that Meta is talking about privacy. Second, most companies will run these models in the cloud anyway. You can run OpenAI via Azure Enterprise and Anthropic on AWS Bedrock.
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#14CrowdStrike just added "Centralized Company Controlled Software Ecosystem" to every risk data sheet on the planet. Everything futureproof is self-hosted and open source.
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#15Only if it is truly open source (open data sets, transparent curation/moderation/censorship of data sets, open training source code, open evaluation suites, and an OSI approved open source license). Open weights (and open inference code) is NOT open source, but just some weak open washing marketing. The model that comes closest to being TRULY open is AI2’s OLMo. See their blog post on their approach: https://blog.all…
> Only if it is truly open source (open data sets, transparent curation/moderation/censorship of data sets, open training source code, open evaluation suites, and an OSI approved open source license)
You’re missing a then to your if. What happens if it’s “truly” open per your definition versus not?
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#16Note that Meta's models are not open source in any interpretation of the term.
* You can't use them for any purpose. For example, the license prohibits using these models to train other models. * You can't meaningfully modify them given there is almost no information available about the training data, how they were trained, or how the training data was processed.
As such, the model itself is not available under an open source license and the AI does not comply with the "open source AI" definition by OSI.
It's an utter disgrace for Meta to write such a blogpost patting themselves on the back while lying about how open these models are.
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#17>In the early days of high-performance computing, the major tech companies of the day each invested heavily in developing their own closed source versions of Unix.
Because they sold the resultant code and systems built on it for money... this is the gold miner saying that all shovels and jeans should be free.
Am I happy Facebook open sources some of their code? Sure, I think it's good for everyone. Do I think they're talking out of both sides of their mouth? Absolutely.
Let me know when Facebook opens up the entirety of their Ad and Tracking platforms and we can start talking about how it's silly for companies to keep software closed.
I can say with 100% confidence if Facebook were selling their AI advances instead of selling the output it produces, they wouldn't be advocating for everyone else to open source their stacks.
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#18Only if it is truly open source (open data sets, transparent curation/moderation/censorship of data sets, open training source code, open evaluation suites, and an OSI approved open source license). Open weights (and open inference code) is NOT open source, but just some weak open washing marketing. The model that comes closest to being TRULY open is AI2’s OLMo. See their blog post on their approach: https://blog.all…
There is also the risk of companies like Meta introducing ads in the training itself, instead of inference time.
Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#19On every post like this on hacker news, I post my pro meta speech. My opinion has always been the same: 1. Meta pushed engineering wages higher across the industry. 2. They promote high performing engineers very quickly. There are engineers making 7 figures there with just a few years experience. 3. They have open sourced the most important frameworks: React and Pytorch This company is a guiding light forcing the han…
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Re: Open source AI is the path forward
#20>In the early days of high-performance computing, the major tech companies of the day each invested heavily in developing their own closed source versions of Unix. Because they sold the resultant code and systems built on it for money... this is the gold miner saying that all shovels and jeans should be free. Am I happy Facebook open sources some of their code? Sure, I think it's good for everyone. Do I think they're…
> if Facebook were selling their AI advances instead of selling the output it produces, they wouldn't be advocating for everyone else to open source their stack
You're acting as if commoditizing one's complements is either new or reprehensible [1].