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The state of open source AI

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Re: The state of open source AI

#121

Post by surgical_fire »

sph wrote: post #58
mft_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open models are probably also comparatively astronomically expensive to train - just less so than the frontier models because they’re somewhat smaller, +/- the creators are more incentivised to focus on getting more from less compute because they’re have to, +/- they rely on distillation of the frontier models and this is more efficient. But efficiencies aside; creation of open models still requires a lot of money an…

How does it work if people flock to open models but they're too expensive to train? What is the financial incentive to do so? I seem to understand open models are mostly coming from China, and the benefit of training and releasing them for 'free' is a powerful geopolitical weapon against the Western/US economy that at this point depends on OpenAI & co. to succeed. Will the West make open models illegal?

If by West you mean the USA, maybe.

Other countries in the westen hemisphere, probably not.

Re: The state of open source AI

#123

Post by SubiculumCode »

babblingfish wrote: post #6

Speculation: open models is what will kill Anthropic and OpenAI. Hyperscalers can run the models without a licensing fee. Apple can make them smaller and put them on the device. The frontier models are an edge and a liability. They're astronomically expensive to train. Without them, their models will fade into obscurity. Their marketing depends on people believing the models are meaningfully different, as people have…

Speculation: Anthropic and and OpenAI become more like hedge funds, keeping their models to themselves, using their them and their compute for market/event prediction, internal tech development, and AI self improvement. I already wonder if that is what Google is doing. Why release your best models to help the competition? Their published models are good enough for 99% of consumers, and they can leverage their market dominance in other areas to put that consumer model in front of eyes. Then the decision to improve your internal models would both depend on whether you think they'd have value internally.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure AI is going to go insular within the largest companies. This will only be hastened by the growing national security concerns/awareness.

Re: The state of open source AI

#124

Post by nekusar »

cyanydeez wrote: post #114
kurthr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit skeptical of the token cost/ROI for all models, but sunk costs are sunk. It has the feel of self-improving super-intelligence or bust to me. If you get that, the frontier model(s) run away with a faster exponential. It's a bit like semi with Moore's Law with silicon, GaAs could never catch up. If you don't get it, the fast followers crush the high investment and there's no moat. Not like they can enforce co…

not really a feeling; if you listen to ed zitron and strip out the vitriol, you still get the fact that the VCs are looking for some 5 trillion dollars in 5 years. The onlly way that happens is if America turns into zimbawe.

Who says it hasn't already?

I've driven in a LOT of the USA. Sure Chicago, NYC, DC, LA, LV... They're all built up and feel modern.

Try driving anywhere in the Midwest outside of the big cities. Dilapidated carcas buildings everywhere. Urban and rural blight. Only jobs are low paying service work. Its bleak. Like, really bad poverty as a disease bleak.

And its crazy watching it too. They're ignorant (involuntatily), poor, and trapped. And democrats only seem to care about special interest of the week, so these areas vote republican.

I don't have a solution btw. Just something I've seen growing in the last 25 years. And its getting worse, not better.

Re: The state of open source AI

#125

Post by jjordan »

bel8 wrote: post #72
dosinga wrote: post #35

> Mozilla exists because one company tried to own the front door to the web, and an open community rose up to make sure it never could. I'd say that the front door to the web is pretty much owned by Google and Apple at this point given Firefox current marketshare. And maybe that's enough, maybe a future where a low percentage of open models keep the rest of the system honest but that doesn't seem the argument of this…

Mozilla exists because Google gives them billions to keep Google as default search engine.

Do you think Firefox development is unsustainable without this substantial stipend?

Re: The state of open source AI

#126

Post by root_axis »

babblingfish wrote: post #6

Speculation: open models is what will kill Anthropic and OpenAI. Hyperscalers can run the models without a licensing fee. Apple can make them smaller and put them on the device. The frontier models are an edge and a liability. They're astronomically expensive to train. Without them, their models will fade into obscurity. Their marketing depends on people believing the models are meaningfully different, as people have…

My prediction is that hardware costs will make open source models impractical for the foreseeable future.

Yes, tinkerers and enthusiasts will continue to make use of them, but frontier companies will maintain near total dominance because they will be the only ones with access to the hardware.

Re: The state of open source AI

#127

Post by radicalriddler »

Catloafdev wrote: post #68

As someone that's generally for the proliferation of open models, I want to take this seriously, but it's really difficult when it was clearly written by AI. I guess they fired whoever used to write copy for these things. Edit: to be clear, I'm not trying to just dunk on them, I think it's actively hurting their own point to do this, and counter-productive when people can easily clock it - it makes some percent of th…

> Parity reached. The contest is one layer up.

I want to vomit reading that.

Re: The state of open source AI

#128

Post by Cyberdog »

inigyou wrote: post #88
khurs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There were a million cell phones before the iPhone took over the world. You have tripped yourself up there. iPhone took over as it introduced something innovative over standard phones, but then Open Source (Android) matched the multi-touch and software differences and Apple's branding, lock-in and design etc have managed to keep it as a big player in wealthier countries. IPhone also came on the back of the massive i…

There were many smartphones before both iOS and Android.

While that may be technically true for a strict definition of “smartphone,” there’s no denying the iPhone redefined the concept in a way that its competitors were forced to copy to have any hope of keeping up. Nobody hears the word “smartphone” and thinks of a Blueberry or Treo anymore.

Re: The state of open source AI

#129

Post by honeycrispy »

root_axis wrote: post #126
babblingfish wrote: post #6

Speculation: open models is what will kill Anthropic and OpenAI. Hyperscalers can run the models without a licensing fee. Apple can make them smaller and put them on the device. The frontier models are an edge and a liability. They're astronomically expensive to train. Without them, their models will fade into obscurity. Their marketing depends on people believing the models are meaningfully different, as people have…

My prediction is that hardware costs will make open source models impractical for the foreseeable future. Yes, tinkerers and enthusiasts will continue to make use of them, but frontier companies will maintain near total dominance because they will be the only ones with access to the hardware.

There will be plenty of model providers with prices that undercut Anthropic/OpenAI's prices.

Re: The state of open source AI

#130

Post by repeekad »

root_axis wrote: post #126
babblingfish wrote: post #6

Speculation: open models is what will kill Anthropic and OpenAI. Hyperscalers can run the models without a licensing fee. Apple can make them smaller and put them on the device. The frontier models are an edge and a liability. They're astronomically expensive to train. Without them, their models will fade into obscurity. Their marketing depends on people believing the models are meaningfully different, as people have…

My prediction is that hardware costs will make open source models impractical for the foreseeable future. Yes, tinkerers and enthusiasts will continue to make use of them, but frontier companies will maintain near total dominance because they will be the only ones with access to the hardware.

Meta is selling their now excess compute, other compute has been on the market for a while. The current hardware cost bubble is temporary, especially once people are forced to pay the real inference price instead of majorly subsidized subscriptions.
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