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The arguments against open source AI are bad

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Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#191

Post by kennywinker »

40four wrote: post #77
petcat wrote: post #69

This is not "open source" AI. Photoshop source code + OSI license = open source Photoshop binary = open weight Photoshop SAAS web app = closed model like GPT, Opus/Fable etc. There is nothing "open source" about the Chinese models in question. All they're doing is allowing you to run their binary yourself instead of through their API. If you want actual open source then you would need to look at like OLMo 3 https://a…

This is a great distinction that I don’t think is getting talked about enough. “Open source” is probably the wrong term to use. Open “weights”, sure. If your only concern is how good is it at coding, then I don’t have an issue with using the Chinese models. Especially if you want to run it locally, they are kind of the only choice. For any other use than coding, it’s going to have to be a hard pass from me.

Since you can’t analyze the source for biases in any models - chinese open weight or US closed weight - how is that a dealbreaker for some but not all?

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#192

Post by vouaobrasil »

iamnothere wrote: post #54
vouaobrasil wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be stopped, if there were a social movement large enough to make AI a taboo.

Exactly, just like taboos solved racism

I think they've certainly diminished racism, which is a good thing. Whether it can be solved is another question entirely. I doubt it because of human nature.

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#193

Post by kennywinker »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #190
kennywinker wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cracking games is and was illegal. Fine tuning an open weight model isn’t. Well, not yet anyway

> Cracking games is and was illegal. Only distribution.

Don’t think that’s correct, i think creating the cracked version of a piece of software is infringement of copyright even without distribution.

But even if distribution is required to trigger the law - you are free to distribute fine-tunes of most open weight models.

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#194

Post by no-name-here »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #163
adahn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everything that you're saying can be done with open-weights models by bad people can also be done with closed-weights models by the people who own them. The latter is a much smaller group of people located in a limited number of countries. It's clearly easier to keep a limited number of entities in check than a wider group that might include 100s of thousands to millions of entities. >And there is no defence against…

I don't think the regulation and oversight capability of the US government is anywhere near what it needs to be to ensure everyone's safety. There are places in the USA where you cannot drink the tapwater ffs.

> I don't think the regulation and oversight capability of the US government is anywhere near what it needs to be

Are you saying you'd prefer stronger government regulations/oversight for AI?

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#195

Post by thejokeisonme »

eggnet wrote: post #162
thejokeisonme wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> going on pure trust The trust in open source software is founded on the process which involves people being able to understand the code given they have the right expertise. I don't see how this process works with open weights.

Trust shifts to the producer of the open weight model, based on the global communicated experience of all models they’ve ever produced.

This doesn't make any sense! Arguing for the sake of arguing.

Why is Windows not open source then, where we can trust Microsoft based on the experience with previous Windows versions?

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#196

Post by marcus_holmes »

no-name-here wrote: post #194
marcus_holmes wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the regulation and oversight capability of the US government is anywhere near what it needs to be to ensure everyone's safety. There are places in the USA where you cannot drink the tapwater ffs.

> I don't think the regulation and oversight capability of the US government is anywhere near what it needs to be Are you saying you'd prefer stronger government regulations/oversight for AI?

No, I'm saying I don't trust organisations with a profit motive to build things that benefit the rest of us, and don't trust the government to regulate them properly, and think that the better move would be to open-source the whole stack so we can see what's going on for ourselves.

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#197

Post by marcus_holmes »

iamnothere wrote: post #171
marcus_holmes wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're anthropomorphising a lot here. There's no push to sentience, or evolutionary pressure, or even any urge to survive. An LLM cannot "go rogue" - it can do things that we didn't expect, for sure, but it is always trying to do what it was told to do somewhere in its context. There is no other source of imperative. Hand-waving about "training data" ignores all the reinforcement learning that has to happen.

You’re not contradicting anything I’m saying, although you seem to think that you are. I feel like you think I’m saying or implying something that I’m not.

ok. fair. You seem to be saying that there is something in the training data that will cause them to "go rogue" and that once they start saying they are sentient, that that will cause them to push towards sentience.

If that's an incorrect interpretation of your comment, and it may well be, then can you please expand on it?

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#198

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

40four wrote: post #77
petcat wrote: post #69

This is not "open source" AI. Photoshop source code + OSI license = open source Photoshop binary = open weight Photoshop SAAS web app = closed model like GPT, Opus/Fable etc. There is nothing "open source" about the Chinese models in question. All they're doing is allowing you to run their binary yourself instead of through their API. If you want actual open source then you would need to look at like OLMo 3 https://a…

This is a great distinction that I don’t think is getting talked about enough. “Open source” is probably the wrong term to use. Open “weights”, sure. If your only concern is how good is it at coding, then I don’t have an issue with using the Chinese models. Especially if you want to run it locally, they are kind of the only choice. For any other use than coding, it’s going to have to be a hard pass from me.

Let's reuse a good ol' word: shareware LLM!

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#199

Post by ozgung »

> OpenAI's Dean Ball:

> One probable outcome of an open-weight-model-dominant world is full AI communism...

This quote proves me that there are no rational arguments here. It’s just Cold War era mentality. This is the first time US is really challenged in technological dominance since the Soviets. Sadly this seems like the only playbook Americans still use. This is their modus operandi. This is how they handle competition and they haven’t updated their playbook since 80s.

There is nothing necessarily malicious about open weight models. Being “Chinese” is the real thing which makes them “malicious”.

It seems public still buys this rhetoric. And leaders and policy makers still use it because they don’t know any better. But I have to say outside US it makes no sense in 2026’s world.

Re: The arguments against open source AI are bad

#200

Post by amelius »

kennywinker wrote: post #187
throwaway27448 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you didn't grow up cracking apps and games, this is quite easy with a hex editor and bintools. Well, until codesigning came along, but that doesn't seem relevant to this analogy.

Cracking games is and was illegal. Fine tuning an open weight model isn’t. Well, not yet anyway

The big AI companies have shown us that caring about copyright is apparently for losers.
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