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Open source AI is the path forward

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Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#851

The big winners of this: devs and AI startups - No more vendor lock-in - Instead of just wrapping proprietary API endpoints, developers can now integrate AI deeply into their products in a very cost-effective and performant way - Price race to the bottom with near-instant LLM responses at very low prices are on the horizon As a founder, it feels like a very exciting time to build a startup as your product automatical…

- Price race to the bottom with near-instant LLM responses at very low prices are on the horizon Maybe a big price war while the market majors fight out for positioning but they still need to make money off their investments so someone is going to have to raise prices at some point and youll be locked into their system if you build on it.

> they still need to make money off their investments

Depends on how you define this. Most of the top companies don't care as much about making a profit off of AI inference itself, if the existence of the -feature- of AI inference drives more usage and/or sales of their other products (phones, computers, operating systems, etc.)

That's why, for example, Google and Bing searches automatically perform LLM inference at no cost to the user.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Open weights" means you can use the weights for free (as in beer). "Open source" means you get the training dataset and the methodology. ~Nobody does open source LLMs.

This is bending the definition to the other extreme. Linux doesn't ship you the compiler you need to build the binaries either, that doesn't mean it's closed source. LLMs are fundamentally different to software and using terms from software just muddies the waters.

"LLMs are fundamentally different to software and using terms from software just muddies the waters."

They're still software, they just don't have source code (yet).

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Source Initiative (kind of a de-facto authority on what's open source and what not) is spending a whole lot of time figuring out what it means for an AI system to be open source. In other words, they're basically trying to come up with a new license because the existing ones can't easily apply. I believe this is the current draft: https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/the-open-source-ai-de...

OSI made themselves the authority because they hated Richard Stallman and his Free Software movement. It's just marketing.

Didn't the Open Source Definition start as the DFSG? You telling me Debian hates the Free Software movement? Unless you define "hating Free Software" as "not banning the BSD license", then I'll have to disagree.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they not run on a computer?

So does a video. Is a video open source if you're given the permissions to edit it? To distribute it? Given the files to generate it? What if the files can only be open in a proprietary program? Videos aren't software and neither are llms.

Videos and images are software. They are compiled binaries with very domain specific instructions executed in a very non-turing complete context. They are generally not released as open source, and in many cases the source code (the file used to edit the video or image) is lost. They are not seen, colloquially, as software, but that does not mean that they are not software.

If a video lacks a specification file (the source code) which can be used by a human reader to modify specific features in the video, then it is software that is simply incapable of being open sourced.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#855
post #832

I'm really unsure if it's a good idea given the current geopolitics. Open-Source Code in the past was fantastic because the West had a monopoly on CPUs and computers. Sharing and contributing was amazing while ensured that tyrants couldn't use this tech to harm people simply because they don't have a hardware to run. But now, things are different. China is advancing in chip technology, and Russia is using open-source…

It was not amazing that the West had monopolies because they are the ones using AI and advancing AI tech to harm people. Im not sure what youre getting at here with that comment

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24151437/ai-israel-gaza-w...

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai...

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The text is an asset used by the source to train the model. The source can process arbitrary text. Text is just text, it was written for communication purposes, software (defined by source code) processes that text in a particular way to train a model.

In programming, "source" and "asset" have specific meanings that conflict with how you used them. Source is the input to some built artifact. It is the source of that artifact. As in: where the artifact comes from. Textual input is absolutely the source of the ML model. What you are using "source" as is analogous to the source of the compiler in traditional programming. Asset is an artifact used as input, that is rev…

I hadn't had my morning coffee yet when I wrote this and I have no idea what I meant instead of "revered", but you get the idea :D

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#857
post #368
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have proposed state ownership of all successful IP. That is a massive change and yet you have demonstrated zero understanding of the possible costs. Your claim that removing a profit motivation will increase investment is flat out wrong. Everything else crumbles from there.

No, I've proposed removing or reducing IP protections, not transferring them to the state. Allowing competitors to enter the market will obviously increase investment in competitors...

Removing IP restrictions transfers them to the state. Grow up.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#858
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at it from the perspective of an elected official: If it succeeds, you were ahead of the curve. If it fails, you were prudent enough to fund an investigation early. Either way, bleeding edge tech gives you a W.

Or you wasted a bunch of tax payer money on some over hyped and over funded nonsense.

Which happens every single day in every government in the world.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#859
post #500

"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 matric…

Open source = reproducible binaries (weights) by you on your computer, IMO. Strategy of FB is that they are good to be a user only and fine ruining competitor’s business with good enough free alternatives while collecting awards as saviors of whatever.

If that were the definition then any software you can install on your computer would be open source. It makes open source lose nearly all meaning.

Just say "open weights", not "open source".

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