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Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

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Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#221

Post by iterateoften »

fabioz wrote: post #208
rbanffy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extremely high taxes I always find this funny. Brazilian taxes are nowhere near what I would say “high”. I pay about twice as much out of my compensation as I would pay in Brazil, and that would be as if I did zero tax optimisation back then.

I can second this. Compared to many countries Brazil doesn't have such high taxes (I'd say that if you work remotely for a company outside of Brazil, you'll probably have much lower taxes compared to almost any other country -- working locally the difference isn't as big, but you have higher taxes in many other places). What it really lacks is access to capital (which is the real "mojo" of the US compared to the rest…

Also the bureaucracy, employee rights, etc.

Incorporating and getting a functional business entity in Brazil is harder. In USA I literally do in 5min online including bank account. In Brazil they are taking out microscopes to verify your signature on the paperwork matches.

And in the USA if you have one bad employee, just fire them any time. In Brazil for better or for worse nowhere near as easy. Obviously better for employees but businesses don’t like it because you can get stuck with a employee dragging down everyone unless you pay them a years salary etc.

Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#222

Post by red-iron-pine »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #165
airstrike wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth reminding everyone that Lua was also created in Rio, though admittedly at PUC rather than by the government. Rio has a strong engineering talent pool, along with many other major capitals in Brazil

Brazil does have talent. Mauro Carvalho Chehab is a Linux kernel maintainer. Elixir was created by José Valim, a brazilian. I have also created my own programming language. What Brazil doesn't have is a history of properly rewarding talent, which often causes it to migrate elsewhere. So it's definitely surprising when any sort of technological development happens in Brazil: it implies someone who stayed managed to ge…

> extremely high taxes that essentially doubles the cost of computer hardware.

I think people are missing the last few words -- cost of computing hardware

when I used to do ISP work I did a lot for LATAM. The joke was that you'd get better bandwidth for Brazil routing out of the country and through Miami than going across the country. The reason? crazy high tariffs on hardware.

No reason to base anything locally, and if you're not basing it locally then there isn't really much reason to stick around, either. Go to other hot markets like Zona America, Austin, CDMX, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. and make the big $$$.

I worked with 2 Brazilian engineers who were in country (and currently work with a 3rd now, based in Monteal) and they were very good but all said they had to get out of country to lock in the serious engineering roles.

Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#223

Post by rbanffy »

rglullis wrote: post #213
rbanffy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but public services are terrible Have you seen the public services of countries with lower taxes? Their public hospitals? > but terrible the moment you start considering employing other people. Employing people isn't cheap anywhere (except, perhaps, in the US, where labour rights are kind of nonexistent)

I live in Germany. No such thing as public hospitals. And I pay close to 1200€/month in health insurance to the public insurance company. I quick visit to the dermatologist to check for some tiny bumps that showed up in my forehead: 60€, out of pocket, because the insurer doesn't cover it.

Sad to hear about that. Ireland is much better in that regard - you can pay for private healthcare and it'll provide you a broader network, but you might as well go for public health, where you'll be prioritized based on how life-threatening is your condition.

Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#224

Post by rglullis »

rbanffy wrote: post #223
rglullis wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany. No such thing as public hospitals. And I pay close to 1200€/month in health insurance to the public insurance company. I quick visit to the dermatologist to check for some tiny bumps that showed up in my forehead: 60€, out of pocket, because the insurer doesn't cover it.

Sad to hear about that. Ireland is much better in that regard - you can pay for private healthcare and it'll provide you a broader network, but you might as well go for public health, where you'll be prioritized based on how life-threatening is your condition.

Yeah, I make it sound worse than it seems. The problem of the public insurance is that you pay based on your revenue instead of your actuarial risk, so in the end it should be treated as an extra form of revenue tax. I could go for the private insurance if I wanted to pay less, but then I'd have to switch my kids to the private insurer as well.

All in all, my point was only that the amount of taxes that people pay and quality of services are not necessarily related. Germany has high taxes and expensive-but-adequate healthcare. Greece has high taxes and expensive-and-inadequate healthcare. Switzerland has low taxes and universal/cheap healthcare (max. $5000/year deductible, max charge per hospitalization of $700).

Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#225

Post by motbus3 »

rafaquintanilha wrote: post #121

I have no affiliation with them but here's what I think happened: 1. They claim the official model is based on Qwen 397B. It's likely they didn't disclose Nex Pro at all because Nex itself is based on the same base model (not saying they shouldn't). 2. The improvement would come from merging the weights PLUS on-policy distillation. The confusion is that the uploaded model didn't have the distillation at all. 3. It's…

It seems to me this is clearly a mistake. They would not even have the resources for it as far as I know and I think they are not even on a position to such bold claims.

Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#226

Post by persedes »

rbanffy wrote: post #206
matheusmoreira wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil does have talent. Mauro Carvalho Chehab is a Linux kernel maintainer. Elixir was created by José Valim, a brazilian. I have also created my own programming language. What Brazil doesn't have is a history of properly rewarding talent, which often causes it to migrate elsewhere. So it's definitely surprising when any sort of technological development happens in Brazil: it implies someone who stayed managed to ge…

> extremely high taxes I always find this funny. Brazilian taxes are nowhere near what I would say “high”. I pay about twice as much out of my compensation as I would pay in Brazil, and that would be as if I did zero tax optimisation back then.

Parent was referring to the cost of hardware. I've had colleagues from brazil visit the US and go absolutely crazy at best buy to grab as much hardware as they could (laptops, nintendo switch, etc), because it's prohibitively expensive for them to buy that at home.

Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#227

Post by throw-the-towel »

rglullis wrote: post #213
rbanffy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but public services are terrible Have you seen the public services of countries with lower taxes? Their public hospitals? > but terrible the moment you start considering employing other people. Employing people isn't cheap anywhere (except, perhaps, in the US, where labour rights are kind of nonexistent)

I live in Germany. No such thing as public hospitals. And I pay close to 1200€/month in health insurance to the public insurance company. I quick visit to the dermatologist to check for some tiny bumps that showed up in my forehead: 60€, out of pocket, because the insurer doesn't cover it.

Wow, 60 euro is cheap! Here in France it would be more like 150.

Re: Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model

#228

Post by dlisboa »

persedes wrote: post #226
rbanffy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extremely high taxes I always find this funny. Brazilian taxes are nowhere near what I would say “high”. I pay about twice as much out of my compensation as I would pay in Brazil, and that would be as if I did zero tax optimisation back then.

Parent was referring to the cost of hardware. I've had colleagues from brazil visit the US and go absolutely crazy at best buy to grab as much hardware as they could (laptops, nintendo switch, etc), because it's prohibitively expensive for them to buy that at home.

It's not "prohibitively" expensive if they managed to pay for flights to the US, hotels and then buy several pieces of hardware. They definitely had more than enough money to buy whatever they wanted in Brazil. It is, however, much more expensive than it should be, which leaves a bad taste in our mouths and means people will find other ways of acquiring some items.
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