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Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

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Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#21
Question to people interested in designing those types of models : what does it matter if the output is "toxic" ? People are toxic ! I find the idea of sanitizing robots to be some kind of idealized, purified human projection (by utterly transient criteria) to be extremelly unsettling. The current sanitization of public discourse is already terrifying. Now you want that crap to be AI-powered ?!

Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#22
My text (it's the most important meal of the day):

> C'est le repas le plus important de la journée

The answer was quite good until it talked about sauerkraut ;)

>, c'est le moment où l'on se régale en famille.

> Ici, rien de compliqué, il suffit juste d'avoir un peu d'imagination et avec les recettes que je vous propose vous devriez y arriver!

> La choucroute est un plat que l'on retrouve dans beaucoup de pays d'Europe, je vous laisse le

Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#23
post #21

Question to people interested in designing those types of models : what does it matter if the output is "toxic" ? People are toxic ! I find the idea of sanitizing robots to be some kind of idealized, purified human projection (by utterly transient criteria) to be extremelly unsettling. The current sanitization of public discourse is already terrifying. Now you want that crap to be AI-powered ?!

Right, especially since what's considered "toxic" is a moving needle (that quote of the General de Gaulle that Zemmour like to use for instance was perfectly fine at the time it was said and still is for a lot of people) and is also not uniform across the world. In particular sexual jokes or double entendre are perfectly fine in French most of time while they're often considered harassment in the US culture.

Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#24
post #21

Question to people interested in designing those types of models : what does it matter if the output is "toxic" ? People are toxic ! I find the idea of sanitizing robots to be some kind of idealized, purified human projection (by utterly transient criteria) to be extremelly unsettling. The current sanitization of public discourse is already terrifying. Now you want that crap to be AI-powered ?!

We could think of language models as public figures and developers and users as supporters. Every public figure has heard nasty language: it's up to you to decide whether to support a public figure who goes around repeating said language.

Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#26
post #8

This is quite impressive, I'm thrilled to be able to play with this, thank you for sharing it openly. Looks like it can handle some basic numbers (I asked for 5 christmas gifts): > Cher père noël, cette année, je voudrais les 5 cadeaux suivants: > - une planche de surf > - des lunettes de soleil > [generated] > - un chapeau de cow-boy > - un skate board > - un télescope > Et le dernier cadeau, tout simplement, c'est…

Yeah it looks as if the input used in generating the next answer weighs a lot. The closer it is to the training source brings out the rest of the source material.

Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#28
post #21

Question to people interested in designing those types of models : what does it matter if the output is "toxic" ? People are toxic ! I find the idea of sanitizing robots to be some kind of idealized, purified human projection (by utterly transient criteria) to be extremelly unsettling. The current sanitization of public discourse is already terrifying. Now you want that crap to be AI-powered ?!

Even worse, filtering the data in this way makes the model biased, i.e., not a useful model.

Imagine for example that someone created a model of human behavior...but filtered out behavior considered "toxic" (whatever that means). Then someone else would naively create for example a simulation of the reaction of a large group of people to some expected events. Now there's a chance that if these events occurred, that mass of people would actually react very differently...because the model was biased! I.e., it did not approximate the average reaction since reactions in some directions were artificially clamped. So now any decisions based on that model would be worthless.

Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#29
Well done! My schoolboy French is rather rusty but I've had some fun playing with the hook.

This is a "describe your holiday" effort that starts with "I've just returned from Spain":

"Je suis de retour d'Espagne ! Ces vacances étaient géniales. Ce que j'ai préféré : -Les tapas de la côte andalouse, tout simplement : jambon de pays, chorizo, patatas bravas, calamars... -Le paysage dans les montagnes autour de"

The punctuation is a bit randomly spaced out and Spain is summarized in food from one region and a strange mountain reference. Another go:

"Je suis de retour d'Espagne ! Ces vacances étaient géniales. Ce que j'ai préféré : la plage, la mer, les jeux dans le sable, le soleil, la glace pour l'après-midi (et l'eau fraîche), les paysages, la bonne"

A bit weird: The holiday was OK. It was what I like: sand and sea and the sun. The ice at midday (and the fresh water) ...

That's all fine by me. It does not matter that it isn't quite finished let alone polished. The key thing is that someone is doing this.

I am a staunch anglophone but I think we need diversity and this is a great jump on that path. A "French first" model and open (libre!) is a boon for all. Hopefully other languages will be championed in a similar way. It would be nice if someone did this for English.

This sort of thing is too important to be locked up in commercial silos. I have no idea what it should look like, let alone be governed but some sort of "Commons" looks appropriate to me.

Re: Show HN: Cedille, the largest French language model, released in open source

#30
That's a great achievement, congrats!

I tried to make it do math but it's giving me some of that french attitude:

Prompt:

Si j'ai 3 pommes et 5 bananes et que je donne 2 bananes à Jean. Combien de bananes me reste t'il?

Generated:

par Esméralda le Dim 11 Nov 2012 - 8:51

Pourquoi donner des bananes à Jean?

par Invité le Dim 11 Nov 2012 - 9:07

Je fais quoi moi parce que j'en ai pas des pommes et des bananes, je vais les donner à qui si j'en ai pas?

par Invité le Dim 11 Nov 2012 - 9:16

// It's pretty cool that the timestamps are in the correct order. Curious why the date is today.

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