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Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

nytimes.com

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Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#81

Post by hintymad »

I think using open-source AI is no longer about API cost but about company survival.

Take Anthropic for an example. Anthropic has successfully destroyed customer trust, at least for me. DHH in a recent interview mentioned that Claude refused to translate an article about immigration. Not summarize. Not editorialize. Translate! I think this reveals an unacceptable level of paternalism: Anthropic fundamentally believes that it possesses a moral authority superior to the people actually paying for the API. If such basic and mechanical translation is already too sensitive to touch, the goalposts have moved from safety into outright censorship. What prevents them from quietly deciding tomorrow that your proprietary business logic, financial data, or legal documents cross their invisible moral line?

Let alone how Anthropic treats Cursor and Figma - not that they are wrong as companies are free to compete legally, but nonetheless it shows that companies can't outsource their intelligence to a potential competitor.

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#82

Post by theseamusjames »

gmadsen wrote: post #78
cmiles8 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most commodities are the same way. It’s super expensive to drill for oil. I need oil and I’m in no position to mine my own because of the massive capital investment. But it doesn’t stop it from being a pure commodity. I couldn’t care less which company drilled for the oil… it’s all the same to me. Models are increasingly no different. OpenAI and Anthropic are a gas station saying “buy our gas for 10x the price!”…

The key difference is that the models upgrade multiple times a year. It is an inherently different than a commodity market

But they're all converging on capability. Do I care if it's a 72% or 74% on SWEBench? Practically, probably not. And if I'm not paying per token locally, then if it takes a tiny bit longer to get to the result, I don't care.

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#83

Post by biophysboy »

I have recently come to the conclusion that thinking for 2 seconds and using a cheap model with a slightly more detailed prompt works just as well as zero-shotting an idea with a fancy model. I work in science, and instead of asking the model “write a topic extraction algorithm”, I just say “hey look at this matrix factorization script I found in a repo, now make it use plotly and duckdb”. Have others come to the same conclusion here?

It makes me skeptical that the flagship companies are sustainable. Every company is going to maximize “fuel efficiency” to save time and money.

Then again, maybe the cheaper models have more markup for them, in which case they are probably happy w this arrangement. I’d be curious to know how the money making varies by model.

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#84

Post by saghm »

simianwords wrote: post #50
cmiles8 wrote: post #26

Every larger company I talk to these days has an active project on moving away from OpenAI and Anthropic to open models. And they’re actively shifting, as the article says, so the threat is far from theoretical. Unless they both dramatically slash prices then they’re in big trouble. Neither of them can afford to do that and both desperately need to convince the street that the opposite will happen if they want any ho…

I know what happens in many big companies and not a single one is moving away from Anthropic/OpenAI/SpaceXAI. > Unless they both dramatically slash prices then they’re in big trouble False, they have already done so many times. > Neither of them can afford to do that and both desperately need to convince the street that the opposite will happen if they want any hope at a successful IPO. False, margins are higher and…

> I can have a formal bet that prices can go lower

Is this a typo? Have you actually made a formal bet on a prediction market or something to put your money where your mouth is, or are you just saying that you could? There's a lot of things I could plausibly make bets on, but that doesn't mean that they're likely to happen.

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#85

Post by woah »

biophysboy wrote: post #83

I have recently come to the conclusion that thinking for 2 seconds and using a cheap model with a slightly more detailed prompt works just as well as zero-shotting an idea with a fancy model. I work in science, and instead of asking the model “write a topic extraction algorithm”, I just say “hey look at this matrix factorization script I found in a repo, now make it use plotly and duckdb”. Have others come to the sam…

Really? It's worth it to you to spend 10 minutes thinking about how to prompt a dumber model to save $0.05? (not that open source models are dumber any more)

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#86

Post by simianwords »

saghm wrote: post #84
simianwords wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what happens in many big companies and not a single one is moving away from Anthropic/OpenAI/SpaceXAI. > Unless they both dramatically slash prices then they’re in big trouble False, they have already done so many times. > Neither of them can afford to do that and both desperately need to convince the street that the opposite will happen if they want any hope at a successful IPO. False, margins are higher and…

> I can have a formal bet that prices can go lower Is this a typo? Have you actually made a formal bet on a prediction market or something to put your money where your mouth is, or are you just saying that you could ? There's a lot of things I could plausibly make bets on, but that doesn't mean that they're likely to happen.

I can have a formal bet with anyone. No prediction market will ever have a stupid bet like this because anyone who has skin in game has studied it enough to know it is a 99.99% chance

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#87

Post by biophysboy »

woah wrote: post #85
biophysboy wrote: post #83

I have recently come to the conclusion that thinking for 2 seconds and using a cheap model with a slightly more detailed prompt works just as well as zero-shotting an idea with a fancy model. I work in science, and instead of asking the model “write a topic extraction algorithm”, I just say “hey look at this matrix factorization script I found in a repo, now make it use plotly and duckdb”. Have others come to the sam…

Really? It's worth it to you to spend 10 minutes thinking about how to prompt a dumber model to save $0.05? (not that open source models are dumber any more)

Yes? The difference is often 10X or 100X with very little time lost. I’m learning how to give it enough info pretty quickly.

Edit: I also have to read the methods anyway for scientific accountability/integrity anyways, so I may as well play that role at the outset.

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#88

Post by eli »

hintymad wrote: post #81

I think using open-source AI is no longer about API cost but about company survival. Take Anthropic for an example. Anthropic has successfully destroyed customer trust, at least for me. DHH in a recent interview mentioned that Claude refused to translate an article about immigration. Not summarize. Not editorialize. Translate! I think this reveals an unacceptable level of paternalism: Anthropic fundamentally believes…

I get what you're saying and it's concerning how much power these big labs have amassed and how little transparency there is in what they do with it...

But I doubt this a major factor in the trend. I just don't think it's something most corporate users run into. My understanding is these guardrails are negotiable for enterprise customers anyway.

And, not for nothing, but if I owned a human-powered translation company I would've refused to translate it too.

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#89

Post by intrasight »

theseamusjames wrote: post #82
gmadsen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference is that the models upgrade multiple times a year. It is an inherently different than a commodity market

But they're all converging on capability. Do I care if it's a 72% or 74% on SWEBench? Practically, probably not. And if I'm not paying per token locally, then if it takes a tiny bit longer to get to the result, I don't care.

Smartphones and laptops are also "converging", but Apple is always a year or two ahead so it doesn't matter. "Converging" is a meaningless term when things move quickly and cost billions to develop.

Re: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

#90

Post by golem14 »

falaki wrote: post #72

They couldn't pick a more sinister headline for such an awesome technological development.

Ah, so you're one of those hippies hooked on free software too, yeah? What's that your smoking there? Emacs, huh? what's your OS? Linux? I knew it.

Corporal, put him away.

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