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The state of open source AI

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Re: The state of open source AI

#221

Post by hobofan »

demosthanos wrote: post #48
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…

Yes, the problem with comparing open models to open source is that open source requires humans to volunteer their time. Open models requires humans to volunteer their money. These two types of contributions have very different behavioral profiles, and it doesn't obviously follow that the historical success of getting people to collaborate socially on building software for fun and for the benefit of the community will…

> open source requires humans to volunteer their time

Your idealistic of open source may require that, but in practice a huge part of open source is commercial and a large chunk of that is low on collaboration (across vendor boundaries).

Re: The state of open source AI

#222

Post by mathieudombrock »

thih9 wrote: post #181

I see a gap in the ecosystem: too few mature open source harnesses. I’d like a community led, BYOK, modular project where I can define, orchestrate, monitor and maintain agents. Of course this is a new area and projects like this take time. But still, IMHO, a gap exists. Unless someone wants to recommend their favorite FOSS tool; please do.

I use opencode as my harness which is pretty ok. I daily drive it with no issues. It's not going to do any orchestration for you but it works.

I'm slowly moving to Pi but it's a very DIY system. Think neovim for agents. I think it has the potential to be where I end up for a while but it's a long road.

Re: The state of open source AI

#223

Post by mark_l_watson »

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.

You may be correct but the combination of local models when they are fast enough and work, combined with paying close to zero for deepseek v4 flash from US providers is pretty good. When you need it, glm5.2 is cheap to use and very good for working with larger projects.

Re: The state of open source AI

#224

Post by semiquaver »

I am sad that there doesn’t seem to be any community whatsoever around _truly_ open models that are released with source data and training methodology, such that they could actually be reproduced given the resources. We’ve allowed the term “open” to be diluted to a shocking extent.

Re: The state of open source AI

#225

Post by nijave »

dmarcos wrote: post #154
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 outcome is plausible. Open weights models though look like a tactical more than a principled play by Chinese companies to overcome the disadvantage and difficulties to access western markets. Two issues: 1. If market conditions change they might decide to close down like Meta did. 2. If as you said models keep getting more expensive to train, is an open weights strategy financially sustainable? edit: typo

I think (and have heard) the Chinese govt is also interested in trying to embarrass the US as well by showing off their capabilities (so there's a political angle, too)

Re: The state of open source AI

#226

Post by nijave »

mft_ wrote: post #33
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…

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…

My (unverified) AI research claimed generally Chinese models are cheaper to train because Chinese data scientists are cheaper to hire and they're also under more pressure to optimize training cost due to limited hardware availability

Seemed believable but not sure where that's true

Chinese AI companies are generally smaller tho and the models they're releasing are also smaller (I think estimates put OpenAI and Anthropic SOTA into trillions of parameters)

Re: The state of open source AI

#227

Post by ubercore »

nijave wrote: post #226
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…

My (unverified) AI research claimed generally Chinese models are cheaper to train because Chinese data scientists are cheaper to hire and they're also under more pressure to optimize training cost due to limited hardware availability Seemed believable but not sure where that's true Chinese AI companies are generally smaller tho and the models they're releasing are also smaller (I think estimates put OpenAI and Anthro…

I can't imagine even with the crazy salaries at frontier labs, staff costs make much of a difference.

Re: The state of open source AI

#228

Post by Terr_ »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #217
satvikpendem wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll lobby to ban them, especially Chinese models, as Amodei is already doing.

I worry about that but here are two positive things: 1. it would put us (USA) at a competitive disadvantage, and cooler heads will prevail in this fight 2. there are good US open models. I have the latest gemma4:27b with better tool support functioning at a high level in the pi coding harness. Thinking Machines seems to be on a good path, we will see what they and other US companies can do.

> at a competitive disadvantage, and cooler heads will prevail

I don't think this a safe assumption at all, given the the last few years of government policy where the "cooler heads" very much failed to stop such things. Either by partisan choice, or because they were silenced/fired for telling the Emperor that his clothes weren't there.

In particular, consider the tariff-taxes [0] against on US importers, and the ensuing breakdown between America and its oldest allies and trading-partners. Also relevant would be the President's recent pet-project war [1], which has shut down a major part of international shipping.

_______

[0] Unilaterally imposed by fiat, with idiotic "failed economics 101" math for the rates... and the majority in Congress still actively tried to keep it going, until the Supreme Court ruled it illegal.

[1] Simultaneously a war and not a war, both already-won and ongoing, depending on which lies need to be told today to harvest applause and grab cash. Just this week the White House submitted documents to Congress claiming what's going on is a completely separate and new, second war with Iran...

Re: The state of open source AI

#229

Post by weakfish »

nekusar wrote: post #124
cyanydeez wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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),…

At risk of greatly oversimplifying American politics, it's truly impressive how good Democrats are at shooting themselves in the foot.

That's why I personally believe Sanders and Mamdani have found so much success with the working class; they keep themselves separate from the Culture War slugfest that mainline Democrats either voluntarily engage in or let Republicans drag them into.

IMO the vast majority of those "culture war" issues (LGBT freedoms, etc) are incredibly important, but to the average poor rural American it feels incredibly distant from their day to day. I can't put my finger on it exactly but Democrats have a tendency to message on those issues in ways that are either counter-productive or get soundbit saying something moronic. So when Fox News and whatnot say that Democrats are prioritizing other groups over them and message on it day after day, it's not hard to see why that propaganda becomes effective.

That's not to say that Sanders/Mamdani/etc don't message on social issues, they obviously do, but they are somehow effective at not alienating voters who may otherwise latch onto that in a negative way.

I don't have a good solution. Just my observations.

Re: The state of open source AI

#230

Post by dmarcos »

nijave wrote: post #225
dmarcos wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The outcome is plausible. Open weights models though look like a tactical more than a principled play by Chinese companies to overcome the disadvantage and difficulties to access western markets. Two issues: 1. If market conditions change they might decide to close down like Meta did. 2. If as you said models keep getting more expensive to train, is an open weights strategy financially sustainable? edit: typo

I think (and have heard) the Chinese govt is also interested in trying to embarrass the US as well by showing off their capabilities (so there's a political angle, too)

All countries see AI as a geopolitical concern. An open source strategy is smart. It’s effective and also builds good will / soft power. Many see Chinese AI companies as the good guys and root for them. I’m pro open source and also celebrate but still aware this is most likely just the means to an end.

I used to work at Mozilla. I think we are missing a player in the market with a more principled open source approach.

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