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The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

blog.doubleword.ai

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Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#211

Post by aurareturn »

dboreham wrote: post #207
c0rruptbytes wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deepseek isn't philanthropy, it's a hedgefund trying to short the western AI market by saying "hey we can do 90% of they can (arguably better at a density metric) for a 1/10th of the cost" it's my theory at least, the Hindenburg Research of AI

Widely held belief in investor circles is that the Chinese government has a goal to deflate the US AI bubble and Deepseek is part of the plan to achieve that goal.

Why would China care about deflating the US AI bubble? Why do we think there is a bubble for sure in 2025/2026? Why doesn't China also worry about their own AI bubble inside the country?

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#212

Post by aurareturn »

jamiedborin1 wrote: post #174
profsummergig wrote: post #5

IMHO, the biggest problem with the future of open weights models is that currently, open weights models are the result of philanthropy by some private org. (e.g. DeepSeek). The spigot can be turned off at any time. Until there's some sort of "community owned hardware", open weights models are always at risk of being discontinued.

I am the original author of the post - thanks for reading it! I think the future of open weights models will be similar to fabless chip design companies. There will be companies that can train models and they will licence those models to inference companies that manage the APIs. The inference companies need much less capital and the training companies dont need to divert resources from training to inference. Some of…

This is likely the case. I think people expecting companies to provide near-SOTA models for free forever are wrong.

I think at some point, Deepseek or Z or other AI training companies will sell their models for fees. I can imagine buying an LLM model for $499 one-time payment for personal use. Maybe buying software and owning it will come back. Some will make you subscribe so you get the latest models as they release them.

Of course, they will also license their models to inference providers like you said.

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#214

Post by tarpitt »

felooboolooomba wrote: post #18
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the biggest plus for open models is that they can never be taken away. In other words, whatever capabilities they reach (even if there will never be another model), those stay forever. That can't be said for API-based models where a provider can sunset models whenever they feel like (i.e. gpt5-mini will soon be gone, and replaced by a more expensive 5.4-mini, same for goog, etc). And there will always be in…

> they can never be taken away Your right to 3d print whatever you want is about to be taken away (in California). What software you can run on your computer can already be restricted. Absolutely everything can be taken away. The simplest way to remove open models is probably to declare them a tool that terrorists could use. Crazy? Yes, the world is totally crazy these days.

Your right to 3d print has been taken away, but not your ability.

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#215

Post by Zetaphor »

woctordho wrote: post #160
echoangle wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe me, if the government wants to stop you from having access to something like that, they could do it. Just give people some incentive to report you and make really harsh punishments and everyone will be thinking really hard about how bad they want have access.

Fun fact: Hacker News is canonically banned in China, but I'm still talking here. There are plenty of techs to work around region block. The incentive to report somebody is comically called '50w' (500k CNY) and no one gives a shit about it in real life.

Hello from the US! I'll never not be amazed by the fact that we live in a point in human history where language and distance are no longer barriers to the exchange of ideas, despite the efforts of our governments.

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#216

Post by tarpitt »

aurareturn wrote: post #211
dboreham wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Widely held belief in investor circles is that the Chinese government has a goal to deflate the US AI bubble and Deepseek is part of the plan to achieve that goal.

Why would China care about deflating the US AI bubble? Why do we think there is a bubble for sure in 2025/2026? Why doesn't China also worry about their own AI bubble inside the country?

>Why would China care about deflating the US AI bubble?

To weaken the stature of the USA on the global stage relative to themselves. Perhaps decrease US investment in AI and slow creation of some general AI superweapon I suppose.

Because the goal is to show that cheap chinese AI can compete with expensive USA AI, it's nessisarially a low-cost attack relative to the "damage" it could create.

>Why do we think there is a bubble for sure in 2025/2026?

Well that's the position that these chinese firms are trying to convince us of, and they can convince us by undercutting proprietary models in price/performance/openness.

In other words, we can be sure there is a bubble to the extent that open-weight models can successfully demonstrate that there is no moat.

>Why doesn't China also worry about their own AI bubble inside the country?

Because they haven't bet the farm on AI like the USA has.

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#217

Post by somnial »

taffydavid wrote: post #181

> Now is probably a good time to liquidate your pension, fly to a remote island somewhere, and live out the remaining 6 months or so of civilization in peace. > So maybe the open source apocalypse won’t happen yet. Sorry I wasn't at the last doomer meeting, when did we decide good open source models are a harbinger for the apocalypse?

this is a blog post from a company that hosts open weights LLMs (https://www.doubleword.ai/). I think its possible it might have been tongue in cheek

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#218

Post by tarpitt »

danlugo92 wrote: post #196
taffydavid wrote: post #181

> Now is probably a good time to liquidate your pension, fly to a remote island somewhere, and live out the remaining 6 months or so of civilization in peace. > So maybe the open source apocalypse won’t happen yet. Sorry I wasn't at the last doomer meeting, when did we decide good open source models are a harbinger for the apocalypse?

Doomerism is at all time high People becoming more and more neurotic by the day

perhaps doomerism is just the logical reaction to our real-world conditions right now

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#219

Post by Schiendelman »

girvo wrote: post #153
Schiendelman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really unclear how much innovation DeepSeek has actually done, vs training on frontier model conversations.

Then you have no understanding of what DeepSeek has actually done. They publish their work openly: go have a look! Their architectural improvements are fascinating.

I think you're right - it was unclear to me, and now that I'm looking (especially at this morning's Deepseek news) I see they're doing quite a bit! Too bad I can't edit that previous comment to say I was wrong. :)

Re: The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

#220

Post by Schiendelman »

slopinthebag wrote: post #50
Schiendelman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really unclear how much innovation DeepSeek has actually done, vs training on frontier model conversations.

Wym it's unclear? They publish their research...

Thanks, I hadn't realized that! I think I was just underinformed about what they do!
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