Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

openeurollm.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 289 posts

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#81

Post by 2-3-7-43-1807 »

jpdus wrote: post #13

As someone who is in general skeptical of programs like this (and an European) there are 2 remarkable / timely things about this: - This project doesn't just allocate money to universities or one large company, but includes top research institutions as well as startups and GPU time on supercomputing clusters. The participants are very well connected (e.g. also supported by HF, Together and the likes with European roo…

> Deepseek has just shown that you probably can't beat the big labs with these resources

is that a new take? cause so far deepseek was considered as proof for small companies being able to compete with big players like openai ...

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#82

Post by preisschild »

wg0 wrote: post #44

United we stand, divided we fall. More than LLMs, Europe needs chip autonomy. ASAP. Own fabs, own IP.

We dont need "total autonomy" when we have friends that already produce chips, for example.

Rather, invest in defense and protect trade with Taiwan.

We can do what we are best at and produce lithography equipment at ASML and the Taiwanese at TSMC produce the chips with it and send them back to us.

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#83

Post by TeMPOraL »

menaerus wrote: post #78
bayindirh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that you're unfamiliar with how EU grants and how these project collections work, but I don't have much time to address this with great detail. As a person who's in this type of projects for a long time, what I can say is "it works", because people do not compete with each other, but will build it together. What I can say is, if they have came this far, there's already plans about what to do, and how to do,…

I largely see this type of collaboration as a very inefficient form of a distributed company (team) where members of that team do not have other incentive but to (mostly) collect points on research papers. There is no incentive to actually build a product in such a setting and there is no incentive to remain competitive since you cannot be fired, or penalized in some other form. And generally speaking, as an individu…

You mean a good environment for doing R&D?

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#84

Post by bayindirh »

menaerus wrote: post #78
bayindirh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that you're unfamiliar with how EU grants and how these project collections work, but I don't have much time to address this with great detail. As a person who's in this type of projects for a long time, what I can say is "it works", because people do not compete with each other, but will build it together. What I can say is, if they have came this far, there's already plans about what to do, and how to do,…

I largely see this type of collaboration as a very inefficient form of a distributed company (team) where members of that team do not have other incentive but to (mostly) collect points on research papers. There is no incentive to actually build a product in such a setting and there is no incentive to remain competitive since you cannot be fired, or penalized in some other form. And generally speaking, as an individu…

This is a Horizon grant, meaning:

    - There's continuous reporting, and money is not guaranteed.
    - You can be removed from the project by not meeting project goals on time.
    - (In this case) There are corporations which are planning to commercialize this thing.
    - There's a concrete and sound roadmap, and it's evaluated in a competition by an independent body and got selected.
    - Without a sound landscape survey, you can't get this type of grant, so free market forces are included.
    - ...and more (I'm trying to be concise).
IOW, these kinds of projects are not parades for free money. You have to put considerable effort and brainpower to write the proposal, get selected and get the grant, and then you have to realize what you have written in your project to get that money.

I'm in many European projects of this kind for close to two decades. These projects do not result in papers. They result in deliverables (documents and what you are intending to build), and they deliver. While I can't go into details, the atmosphere is never an "academic" one, but it's connected to real world. We sometimes work with commercial entities to improve their know-how and abilities, too. Many of the projects have commercial partners which commercialize these technologies, esp in earth/ecosystem observation.

Sometimes we support them for free, because they need to do the research to be able to show what they are doing for an initial grant. It's not about money, fame, having a corner office with free flowing grant money or travel.

People do this to improve the world around them and make an impact, and we don't fight over wins. We drink coffee and work hard to deliver what we promised.

Lastly, I don't get the grant money. It's just deposited to institution account. I have no monetary or material gain from this.

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#85

Post by bayindirh »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #83
menaerus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I largely see this type of collaboration as a very inefficient form of a distributed company (team) where members of that team do not have other incentive but to (mostly) collect points on research papers. There is no incentive to actually build a product in such a setting and there is no incentive to remain competitive since you cannot be fired, or penalized in some other form. And generally speaking, as an individu…

You mean a good environment for doing R&D?

Yes, we do a great deal of R&D, too. It looks boring from outside, but it enables things for us and researchers. Oh, and we give the patches back to the tools we use.

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#86

Post by closewith »

bayindirh wrote: post #67
isoprophlex wrote: post #57

I'm HIGHLY sceptical. The academics will love it, because they get money. But look at that list of parties involved. More than twenty parties supplying people; none of them will have this initiative on the top of their list of loyalties and priorities. Meaning, everyone will talk, noone will take charge, some millions change hands and we continue with business as usual. Instead this should have been a single new non-…

I can see that you're unfamiliar with how EU grants and how these project collections work, but I don't have much time to address this with great detail. As a person who's in this type of projects for a long time, what I can say is "it works", because people do not compete with each other, but will build it together. What I can say is, if they have came this far, there's already plans about what to do, and how to do,…

> I can see that you're unfamiliar with how EU grants and how these project collections work, but I don't have much time to address this with great detail.

This is a take that can only come from someone who is dependent on Horizon, because I don't think any independent observer could look at Horizon projects and say they just work.

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#87

Post by miohtama »

sarusso wrote: post #8

They allocated €37.4 million [1]. As an European, I truly don’t understand why they keep ignoring that the money required for such projects is at least an order of magnitude more. [1] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/pioneering-ai-...

Because Europe does not have enough money. This comes from taxes i.e. as an EU citizen you pay for the fun.

Private sector often does not fund projects like these as they have bad return on investment.

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#88

Post by bayindirh »

closewith wrote: post #86
bayindirh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that you're unfamiliar with how EU grants and how these project collections work, but I don't have much time to address this with great detail. As a person who's in this type of projects for a long time, what I can say is "it works", because people do not compete with each other, but will build it together. What I can say is, if they have came this far, there's already plans about what to do, and how to do,…

> I can see that you're unfamiliar with how EU grants and how these project collections work, but I don't have much time to address this with great detail. This is a take that can only come from someone who is dependent on Horizon, because I don't think any independent observer could look at Horizon projects and say they just work.

> This is a take that can only come from someone who is dependent on Horizon.

No, I'm not dependent on Horizon Programme. I just look at what we did, the outcomes, and talk from that point.

Maybe our sphere is one of the ones which deliver. I can't see the whole thing, it's too big to observe. Even if we're in the 5% which delivers, which is same with the startup scene, which is loudly applauded because it's an incredibly well working system.

Re: Open Euro LLM: Open LLMs for Transparent AI in Europe

#90

Post by menaerus »

bayindirh wrote: post #84
menaerus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I largely see this type of collaboration as a very inefficient form of a distributed company (team) where members of that team do not have other incentive but to (mostly) collect points on research papers. There is no incentive to actually build a product in such a setting and there is no incentive to remain competitive since you cannot be fired, or penalized in some other form. And generally speaking, as an individu…

This is a Horizon grant, meaning: - There's continuous reporting, and money is not guaranteed. - You can be removed from the project by not meeting project goals on time. - (In this case) There are corporations which are planning to commercialize this thing. - There's a concrete and sound roadmap, and it's evaluated in a competition by an independent body and got selected. - Without a sound landscape survey, you can'…

I am familiar with Horizon and EU grant funds and how these projects are managed - basically a big waste of time and money without concrete results with plenty of bureaucracy crawling the project ideas and resources to the halt. I am not saying that because I think people are not hard working, I am just saying that the process as it is is not fit to produce something (market) competitive. Process is there to serve its own purpose.

You mention deliverables as document specs? Those are not the deliverables. The deliverables are products that gain traction and see success on the market or research topics that gain traction in the academia because of their groundbreaking methods. That in sufficiently short period of time because otherwise you cannot remain competetive. Leaving "commercialization" on the table while we figure out something is also what is wrong with the system. The world does not wait for EU to commercialize the idea that has been put into a document 5 years ago.

I can give concrete examples of many large EU companies and institutions, because they are just that and they have a lot of power, getting millions of EURs just to produce BIG nothing. Innovation is not at the heart of these projects. Mostly subpar engineers with no deep science research.

Can you list me few examples of successful projects you have in mind? Why, for example, Mistral AI isn't among them?

Post reply on HN