The state of open source AI • Hacker News Board

Re: The state of open source AI

#141

Post by enos_feedler » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

wosk wrote: post #73

goolz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Once I can reliably get open models doing what I am on Fable ultra I imagine I will switch for good. I am fortunate to have access to a decent bit of local RAM, 192GB of DDR5 at an OK speed. It is not enough and costs are well past absurd. In a few years time I envisage a setup that is sub $10k which can accomplish such tasks. The pace so far has been breakneck. That is all I personally need. That m…

This is easier to say as Fable is good (even SOTA). But people have been were saying this continuously for the current model and for now the improvement are still coming. A better question is would you settle for o3 now or pay 20$ or 200$/month for fable ? Because o3 quality is available OSS. It is like the new IPhone, in some sort. At some point come a feature many would like to have, despite diminishing returns. We…

IMO we are there almost. I had every iphone until 14 pro and still use this today. I know what the top of the s curve feels like. From a pure model standpoint weighed against every day use cases for every day people (the right way to measure when comparing to something as ubiquitous as a phone), the models already have diminishing returns.

Re: The state of open source AI

#142

Post by cyanydeez » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

braiamp wrote: post #101

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…

The real moat aren't the models, but the tooling around the models that allow them to perform specific tasks/goals. That's what really sets apart frontier vs open. Open only has the model itself, closed have the tooling to enhance the model.

unfortunately, for me, that's an anti-moat; their dark, inconcievable, alignment, random "no goblins" and inability to be reliable where their models are inevitable non-determinant means you're going to constantly run into the "this worked yesterday" problems, no matter how smart the models actually are; being filtered constantly through economics, political and ego-maniacal filters means everything you do with it will break at any given interval.

good luck.

Re: The state of open source AI

#143

Post by hungryhobbit » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

ofjcihen wrote: post #52

GodelNumbering wrote: post #45

Exactly 4 months ago, the marketshare on openrouter was 60%-40% in favor of closed models. Now it's 63%-37% in favor of open models. On March 19th, the open models processed 888B tokens in aggregate, yesterday, they processed 4.19T tokens in aggregate. That's almost 5x in 4 months! I can't think of the right intensifier to describe this level of growth. If you are looking for more details (as inferred by openrouter d…

This right here is going to be considered one of the first major signs of the downfall of closed models years from now. And look, if you disagree with me PLEASE tell me why. What moat do these companies have? I genuinely want to know because looking at the spend for companies like OAI and Anthropic with no actual moat I can identify is actually driving me insane.

I think the frontier AI companies think you're missing key details:

- they can still discover entire new untapped markets for AI (that, potentially, only their models can unlock)

- they can find (novel, unique to them) ways to drive down the cost of running their models

- they can provide other ancillary value (e.g. write better harnesses) because of their expertise, and then charge for that value

I'm probably missing a few bullet points also. However, none of those are moats (or at least not yet) ... I'd consider them more like bets. The frontier AI companies are betting "the house" on them, and if they pay off they could, hypothetically, make them financially competitive.

Re: The state of open source AI

#144

Post by xur17 » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

GodelNumbering wrote: post #45

Exactly 4 months ago, the marketshare on openrouter was 60%-40% in favor of closed models. Now it's 63%-37% in favor of open models. On March 19th, the open models processed 888B tokens in aggregate, yesterday, they processed 4.19T tokens in aggregate. That's almost 5x in 4 months! I can't think of the right intensifier to describe this level of growth. If you are looking for more details (as inferred by openrouter d…

Interesting to see, but I also think more and more usage is moving towards subscriptions, which isn't captured by this metric.

(both my personal and corporate use has done exactly this)

Re: The state of open source AI

#145

Post by hungryhobbit » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

Cuuugi wrote: post #3

Maybe its the wildfire smoke in my eyes, but that font choice feels aggressive.

Forget aggressive, I just find the main text font harder to read (vs. ... you know ... a normal font).

Re: The state of open source AI

#146

Post by switchbak » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

Vespasian wrote: post #87

wosk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is easier to say as Fable is good (even SOTA). But people have been were saying this continuously for the current model and for now the improvement are still coming. A better question is would you settle for o3 now or pay 20$ or 200$/month for fable ? Because o3 quality is available OSS. It is like the new IPhone, in some sort. At some point come a feature many would like to have, despite diminishing returns. We…

I think there is also the case were companies will simply use different tiers for different tasks. While the engineering team might need a cutting edge model (with the associated costs), the marketing department will be fine by something that can grammar correct or turn a few bullet points into prose. Likewise you already don't need Fable for Ticket -> RAG -> Reply with Faq knowledge or escalate workflows That's alre…

"that can grammar correct" ... Did you do that on purpose?

Re: The state of open source AI

#147

Post by docheinestages » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

> The cloud era already ran this experiment: proprietary APIs plus data gravity made exit punitive. The repatriation wave is the receipt.

Some sentences smell a lot like AI.

Re: The state of open source AI

#148

Post by smj-edison » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #139

braiamp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real moat aren't the models, but the tooling around the models that allow them to perform specific tasks/goals. That's what really sets apart frontier vs open. Open only has the model itself, closed have the tooling to enhance the model.

> The real moat aren't the models, but the tooling around the models that allow them to perform specific tasks/goals. That's what really sets apart frontier vs open. Open only has the model itself, closed have the tooling to enhance the model. As these frontier companies have been boasting, writing software is now a negligible cost because the LLM can do it. IOW, no, their software can't be a moat, because, according…

> you can use their LLM to trivially clone their software.

Perhaps, but what you can't clone is familiarity, polish, integration, and network effects. These companies desperately need a moat, and so for example all the new additions to Claude's web interface are becoming the products that the vast majority of people will use and be locked into (if it goes according to their plan).

Re: The state of open source AI

#149

Post by lardosaurusrex » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

mozilla only began babbling about open source ai when they got their teeth extracted for free via the entire community giving them the curbiest of curbstomps.

i still use firefox but hot damn did they utterly fail to read the room initially. the only other company i can think of in recent memory -- besides sony cutting out discs -- is logitech when their ceo began gibbering about a subscription mouse or microsoft and its copilot button(s).

Re: The state of open source AI

#150

Post by xorcist » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 5:59 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #123

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…

They would have done that long ago if it was that easy. The fact that they aren't tells us something about the actual business utility of leading models.