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GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

tno.nl

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Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#161

It is crazy that anything Europe gets so much hate. IMO it is important to build models within the boundaries of smaller nations, using their own language. Research has to continue even if it is outside of US and China.

This platform is running from the US and frequently accessed by US people. What else would you expect?

Humanity

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#162
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kimi and Qwen come out of China, which means that their training material may be biased e.g. relating to Taiwan [1]. In addition, there is no way to determine what input went into the training, if it was properly licensed, if it was legal (e.g. not contaminated by CSAM), or how the human component of RLHF was sourced - in US models, for example, stories about exploitation like [2] have been floating for years. Assumi…

Uh, some would say it's easy to determine what input went into the training for kimi and qwen.. since they were caught stealing it from American labs. Some cultural cliches may never change.

> since they were caught stealing it from American labs

...and "good guys" the American labs were caught stealing from authors all over the world[1].

[1]: www.npr.org/2025/09/05/g-s1-87367/anthropic-authors-settlement-pirated-chatbot-training-material

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#163
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlike the US, Europe has no California-level VCs. Some would consider that a good thing. There is a lot to be said for VC in recent years not being beneficial for the economy, certainly on an individual level, other than "number go up".

> There is a lot to be said for VC in recent years not being beneficial for the economy What a wild statement, VC's are behind most of the growth in the US economy, and they directly drive up wages in tech. I'd be fascinated to hear a valid complaint of VC's that isn't just money envy

Economic growth doesn't mean much if the benefits are concentrated in a small percentage of the population.

And while I can't disagree it has benefited tech wages historically that is just one industry. Then there are also the recent mass layoffs.

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#164
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlike the US, Europe has no California-level VCs. Some would consider that a good thing. There is a lot to be said for VC in recent years not being beneficial for the economy, certainly on an individual level, other than "number go up".

[flagged]

Lol, okay bud. Lets go all in on the extreme hyperboles.

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#165
post #70

I keep seeing these "sovereign" LMs time and time again. In Sweden we had GPT-SW3 ( https://www.ai.se/en/project/gpt-sw3 ) and same story there. Instead of burning money on "sovereign" claims, national research labs should instead focus on building on top of solid baselines (like Qwen/Kimi) and finetuning frontier models with real agentic utility that can be applied across actual use cases and can be widely used by i…

Their legality is very questionable given all the likely copyright infringement going on, and a state can't really ignore that.

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#166

So good to see these developments. Every country should do this. I'd even say every person should gave their own personalized AI running on their own computers. If only the costs involved were not so astronomical.

"Champions of a European AI model should ask themselves if a European effort would be more effective than Meta, which this year will spend more on chips ($125 billion) than Germany spends on defense ($114 billion) and offer salaries of over $100 million to attract the best researchers, and is still failing to catch up. Elon Musk tried and failed to build a good AI model."

https://www.siliconcontinent.com/p/nineteen-thoughts-on-ai-a...

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#167
post #70

I keep seeing these "sovereign" LMs time and time again. In Sweden we had GPT-SW3 ( https://www.ai.se/en/project/gpt-sw3 ) and same story there. Instead of burning money on "sovereign" claims, national research labs should instead focus on building on top of solid baselines (like Qwen/Kimi) and finetuning frontier models with real agentic utility that can be applied across actual use cases and can be widely used by i…

Disagree, it’s in the country’s best interest to facilitate internal expertise on the full stack and own their “supply chain” so to speak and fight brain drain. The outcome isn’t just the model, it’s the expertise. Otherwise all their smartest folks will depart for countries where LLM development is strongest.

Got it, so every country should focus on having a mediocre-at-best AI strategy by refusing to work together? Surely this will create a better future instead of pooling resources.

This vaguely-nationalist world view around tech that’s emerging in Europe is dangerous, man.

On the brain drain problem in particular, one way to ensure talent sticks around is to create a good environment for people to do their best work. In much of Europe, getting bureaucracy out of the way and encouraging real investment would go a long way. People leave because they can make more money and they want to be surrounded by the best people. People would trade some of that off to stick around their home countries, however if you go to California and talk to folks from e.g. NL or DE working on this stuff, they have a lot to say about innovation and working culture back home.

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#169
post #70

I keep seeing these "sovereign" LMs time and time again. In Sweden we had GPT-SW3 ( https://www.ai.se/en/project/gpt-sw3 ) and same story there. Instead of burning money on "sovereign" claims, national research labs should instead focus on building on top of solid baselines (like Qwen/Kimi) and finetuning frontier models with real agentic utility that can be applied across actual use cases and can be widely used by i…

Sounds like calling those model "open source" did its wicked job. You can not take an open weight model and build a next-generation model using that as a foundation. Once those companies decide it's no longer in their interest to release new open weights everything you've created this way becomes a pile of rapidly deprecating legacy.

Re: GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands

#170
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree, it’s in the country’s best interest to facilitate internal expertise on the full stack and own their “supply chain” so to speak and fight brain drain. The outcome isn’t just the model, it’s the expertise. Otherwise all their smartest folks will depart for countries where LLM development is strongest.

Got it, so every country should focus on having a mediocre-at-best AI strategy by refusing to work together? Surely this will create a better future instead of pooling resources. This vaguely-nationalist world view around tech that’s emerging in Europe is dangerous, man. On the brain drain problem in particular, one way to ensure talent sticks around is to create a good environment for people to do their best work. I…

Why would it have to be mediocre?

Both Netherlands and Sweden produce highly competent researchers. Per capita on par with any other location on the planet, including California.

This will be good for Europe as a whole and also the planet.

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