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Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

anthropic.com

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Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#51
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5-20 years? Have you seen the financials of the AI companies?

Have you seen the progress AI companies are making? 5 years is more than how long this entire market has existed. In 5 years, we may not have stocks anymore.

No one knows the future, but my (half serious) prediction is that governments will step in, public access to high end models will have an 'IQ governor' and/or throttling applied, the most advanced models will be put behind closed doors, and the biggest AI companies won't be allowed to fail.

Those who are in charge will try like mad to keep things exactly the way they are, with only slow and incremental changes which they can reap maximum rewards from. Same as it ever was, right?

We could develop ASI, and it could give us the blueprint for a peaceful paradise on Earth for every human, and in my current opinion, the leaders of the world would lock it away and never let it see the light of day. Perhaps they'd even destroy it. [Sorry, I'm a bit jaded this morning.]

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#52

> The MHS driver uses a simple set of primitives—commands like “read” (for example, “get temperature”) or “write” (for example, “set temperature”)—that any hardware device can understand and act on. And it makes each device discoverable in a standard format, so that devices and agents can find each other and communicate across networks without needing a bespoke “translator” program in between. > the MHS driver then a…

Its more like that no one took the time and effort to standardize a proper USB HID interface in a way that that it has clear benefit of a hardware manufactuerer exponsing a good generic easy to use interface through USB HID and standardizing reasonable broad spectrum of features.

Its not magic what they do, but its def a very helpful and clear thing: You design an USB interface for natural language and you do this were you don't have to follow bits and bytes but just plain text and you know it actually getting used by someone.

I mean if i would make a microscope, I would also deliver the software for it if it is anything more specific than a 0815 generic school kid microscope.

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#53
post #27

The standard makes sense: models work much better when devices expose standardized, machine-readable interfaces. But as far as I can tell, this technical "standard" isn't actually public yet (you have to apply for access to even see or implement it.) Anthropic says they plan to open source it later. Quite a departure from the way foundational hardware standards like USB and CAN were developed. You shouldn't need perm…

USB was developed by a big alliance of major software and hardware vendors. This stuff on the other hand always feels like Anthropic is just scared of dropping out of the news cycle because other companies are constantly releasing models or making them cheaper, while they currently have nothing real to offer themselves. MCP was a complete clusterfuck an announced at a time when OpenAI absolutely dominated with reason…

Anthropic is market leader, of course they are also part of the forefront of doing things like this.

There motivation is quite clear: Proper fast adoption.

does it help if you get news out? For sure, but this is a reasonable good and interesting thing they did.

Could i define MHS? For sure, would anyone use it? For sure not.

You sound quite negative for something which fits anthropic very well.

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#54
post #52

> The MHS driver uses a simple set of primitives—commands like “read” (for example, “get temperature”) or “write” (for example, “set temperature”)—that any hardware device can understand and act on. And it makes each device discoverable in a standard format, so that devices and agents can find each other and communicate across networks without needing a bespoke “translator” program in between. > the MHS driver then a…

Its more like that no one took the time and effort to standardize a proper USB HID interface in a way that that it has clear benefit of a hardware manufactuerer exponsing a good generic easy to use interface through USB HID and standardizing reasonable broad spectrum of features. Its not magic what they do, but its def a very helpful and clear thing: You design an USB interface for natural language and you do this we…

USB-HID is standardized. But you still have to represent the device model somehow. You can never get away from that.

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#55
So something like what happened with Cyberdyne Systems. So, by the time AI becomes self-conscious, it will already have the physical capabilities to control manufacturing and replication. Good times. Terminator arriving any time now from the future. :)

Anyway, my company is already looking into using MHS

We have open positions, check them out https://xff.cz/

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#56
Simple task-specific CLI tools that your agent builds for itself are usually lower-friction than yet another Universal Thing Doer standard. As a bonus, human operators also benefit.

> The MHS driver also helps an AI agent understand how to use a device it has never seen before, giving it information about machine characteristics that may not be discernable from code alone (for example, the weight of a robot arm, which is important for knowing how to manipulate it safely).

I physically flinched when I read this. VLA, JEPA, sure, they make sense. Is connecting an LLM to a robot arm and say "perform this complex physical manipulation task by issuing text-based commands, make no mistakes" really the right abstraction?

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#57

> The MHS driver uses a simple set of primitives—commands like “read” (for example, “get temperature”) or “write” (for example, “set temperature”)—that any hardware device can understand and act on. And it makes each device discoverable in a standard format, so that devices and agents can find each other and communicate across networks without needing a bespoke “translator” program in between. > the MHS driver then a…

Anthropic is gearing up for an IPO. The fact that other protocols already do what MHS describes is not relevant to the intended audience: investors with FOMO.

Also: https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#58

Simple task-specific CLI tools that your agent builds for itself are usually lower-friction than yet another Universal Thing Doer standard. As a bonus, human operators also benefit. > The MHS driver also helps an AI agent understand how to use a device it has never seen before, giving it information about machine characteristics that may not be discernable from code alone (for example, the weight of a robot arm, whic…

Concur. Have we forgotten about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25?

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB was developed by a big alliance of major software and hardware vendors. This stuff on the other hand always feels like Anthropic is just scared of dropping out of the news cycle because other companies are constantly releasing models or making them cheaper, while they currently have nothing real to offer themselves. MCP was a complete clusterfuck an announced at a time when OpenAI absolutely dominated with reason…

> The only reason it took off is because noone else bothered to make something better Yes, and that alone is sufficient reason for them to do it. They did it with MCP. They did it with Skills. OpenAI did it with tools. All of these had many months, sometimes even years, of existing prior art . All of these could've been done much better, too. But "worse is better", first one to get a properly packaged MVP out the doo…

If OpenAI has set the API standard more or less without even trying just by offering one of the most straightforward ways of interacting with LLMs via http. To the point that they got stuck with this legacy thing now that they and many others keeps reasoning traces private on their servers, which actually hinders future adoption. If they had forced their function calling and structured output API standards just a bit more in response to MCP, they probably could have smothered it in the crib. If this part was standardised more, MCP would offer hardly any extra benefit.

Re: Previewing the Model Hardware Standard

#60
post #27

The standard makes sense: models work much better when devices expose standardized, machine-readable interfaces. But as far as I can tell, this technical "standard" isn't actually public yet (you have to apply for access to even see or implement it.) Anthropic says they plan to open source it later. Quite a departure from the way foundational hardware standards like USB and CAN were developed. You shouldn't need perm…

>Anthropic says they plan to open source Doubt.

They transferred MCP to the Linux foundation, I’m not sure what makes you doubt they would the same for MHS
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