Careless People • Hacker News Board

Re: Careless People

#361

Post by diggan » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #233

diggan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fork them This requires all of the "source" to be available. For PyTorch and a bunch of other projects, this is trivial as all the source is straight up on GitHub. But for proprietary things like Llama, it's really hard to fork something when you don't even have access to what they used to build it (software-wise, not even thinking about the hardware yet). How could you fork something like Llama when Meta don't eve…

> you have to agree to terms and conditions before you're "allowed" to do anything with it I don’t have experience with this so I’m taking it at face value; if this is true, it’s so strange that I have an idea of this being an “open” model. As in, not that they PR’ed to make people believe it but that people who were required to accept those terms seem to believe it (as users seem to repeat it). Seems a little bit of…

> Are there any, more reasonably open models? Is LLaMa just called open because it’s the most accessible?

Indeed there are! They aren't exactly SOTA, but they're 100% open source and you could build them yourself from scratch, granted you had the compute, knowledge and time for it. OLMo 2 from Ai2 is probably the most notable one.

I think Llama is called "open source" because that's what Meta, Zuckerberg and the Llama website says it is, and people take it at face value. Then people see "Oh but it's free, who cares about the license?" not understand how we got here in the first place...

Re: Careless People

#362

Post by diggan » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

caseyy wrote: post #326

diggan wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've kind of answered a different question. Yes, more LLM models could be created. But specifically Llama? Since it's an open source model, the assumption is that we could (given access to the same compute of course) train one from scratch ourselves, just like we can build our own binaries of open source software. But this obviously isn't true for Llama, hence the uncertainty if Llama even is open source in…

I understand I was supposed to say “no” and question the open-source label. We’ve heard many arguments that if something can’t be reproduced from scratch, it’s not true open-source. To me, they sound a bit like “no true Scotsman”. Llama is open source, compared to commercial models with closed weights. Even if it could be more open source. That’s why I looked at it in a broader sense — what could happen in an open-so…

> Llama is open source, compared to commercial models with closed weights

Yeah, just like a turd is a piece of gourmet food if there is no other good food around.

Sorry, but that's a really bad argument, "open source" is not a relative metric you use to compare different things, it's a label that is applied to something depend on what license that thing has. No matter what licenses others use, the license you use is still the license use.

Especially when there are actually open source models out there, so it isn't possible. Maybe Meta feels like it's impossible because of X, Y and Z, but that doesn't make it true just because they don't feel like they could earn enough money on it, or whatever their reasoning is.

Re: Careless People

#363

Post by aredox » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:09 PM UTC

WoodenChair wrote: post #301

I used the form on the author of the book's website a few weeks ago to invite her on our books podcast: https://sarahwynnwilliams.com She didn't respond, which is fair enough, it's probably not big enough to be interesting to her. But then I got auto-added to her PR mailing list. I didn't ask or consent to be on the PR mailing list (all the page says as of now is "To contact Sarah, please complete the form below"). S…

She certainly didn't code that contact form. Still an oversight from her, but...

Re: Careless People

#364

Post by rightbyte » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:11 PM UTC

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #302

rightbyte wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two sour losers I know just refuse to play any game at all. Cooperative games or team games they think are kinda fine though of they are "forced to". They just can't handle being targeted as individuals. Maybe Zuckerberg has a lack of self reflection?

I'm like that and really I have lots of free time because of not playing any competitive games Downside is I obviously don't use that free time to do anything I'm not already skilled at, like art or music or writing or exercise (except for rock climbing which I manage to not be competitive at)

Ye. My problem is the opposite. I am a way too good loser. It has its drawbacks too but they are less emotionally obvious maybe.

Re: Careless People

#365

Post by scruple » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #287

scruple wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea. What I do know is that there's no degree of hard work or talent that will make me a billionaire.

I'd argue that every billionaire has a talent for persuading capable people to join them on a journey. Having that skill alone isn't enough because you also need to pick the right journey at the right time, but not having that skill definitely means you won't be a billionaire.

This makes me think of early employees in a startup that goes through an IPO or acquisition. Skill and talent get you through the door but heaps and heaps of luck lead to that event. Having personally won a (minor) startup lottery I got to see the luck factor first hand.

Re: Careless People

#366

Post by sepositus » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

hermitcrab wrote: post #358

sepositus wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it more as a sign of how few mainstream alternatives have been proposed. I've been guilty of generally assuming a communist bent when I see a negatively zealous response to the "free market" ideology. I don't act on the assumption, but from my experience, it tends to be the most common result. Our political system seems hell-bent on only ever having two solutions to a problem, though.

We seem to be stuck at a local maxima[1]. The current system works great for the 0.001% who have all the money and the power, so it isn't in their interest to change it. But there definitely seems to have been a failure of the imagination amongst the 99.999%. Too distracted by social media and our phones perhaps? [1] There is a lot to dislike about the current system, but there have been far worse ones (feudalism, co…

> Too distracted by social media and our phones perhaps?

I think this is a significant contributing factor. It's becoming increasingly difficult to have any semblance of a meaningful conversation with those around me. I don't really know how to describe it other than an apparent "dumbing down" of the average person. I despise elitists, and I hate to even act in a way that might come off as elitist, but I simply have no other explanation for what I am seeing. People just want to talk about the latest trend on TikTok and have no interest in applying anything close to intellectual thought to what's happening around them.

Re: Careless People

#367

Post by caseyy » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

diggan wrote: post #362

caseyy wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand I was supposed to say “no” and question the open-source label. We’ve heard many arguments that if something can’t be reproduced from scratch, it’s not true open-source. To me, they sound a bit like “no true Scotsman”. Llama is open source, compared to commercial models with closed weights. Even if it could be more open source. That’s why I looked at it in a broader sense — what could happen in an open-so…

> Llama is open source, compared to commercial models with closed weights Yeah, just like a turd is a piece of gourmet food if there is no other good food around. Sorry, but that's a really bad argument, "open source" is not a relative metric you use to compare different things, it's a label that is applied to something depend on what license that thing has. No matter what licenses others use, the license you use is…

> Yeah, just like a turd is a piece of gourmet food if there is no other good food around.

I didn't mean it's on a continuum, as you assumed. Apologies for phrasing it unclearly. I meant that the weights are public. They are open; there is no debate to be had about it. Generally and broadly, that is already considered open-source.

And we all understand what "open-source" means in the context of Llama - it doesn't mean one of the idealized notions of open source, it means open weights.

Re: Careless People

#368

Post by obscurette » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

ranger207 wrote: post #356

Doctorow touches on this, but I really think the biggest problem with society today is simply that too many people in power simply don't experience consequences

I think that's true for our society in general at the moment. Everyone can behave like an asshole and it's completely OK for a society if they say "I had a tough childhood and haven't received a professional help".

Re: Careless People

#369

Post by ModernMech » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

> If you're wildly successful at something with significant real world influence, why would you care so strongly about something as relatively inconsequential as a board game or a video game?

Billionaires are highly psychologically disordered individuals. This is an expression of unrestrained narcissism in a "man" who has fully neglected to grow character as an individual, because his obscene wealth allows him to get through life with the emotional maturity of a teenager. Same with Musk, same with Trump, same with most other billionaires. Bill Gates is another great example.

People hate to admit it, but apparently having a billion dollars either makes one a narcissist, or it takes being a narcissist to make a billion dollars. Either way, just from the data we have in front of us, there's a very strong correlation there.

Re: Careless People

#370

Post by ModernMech » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:48 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #282

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

you're getting the order of events backwards. it's not "Become a billionaire, then become a baby who insists they be allowed to win board games". The order is, first you're an entitled, manipulative jackass with absolutely no bottom for unethical behavior and zero tolerance for "losing", then become a billionaire by being so brazenly shitty in all areas of life and getting people to go along with you. Caveat, you hav…

I tend to agree with you, but I also tend to believe that indeed, having a billion dollars (read: having no constraints) will tend to bring out the worst in anyone.

Another way to say this is, most people who earn obscene wealth who would be offended by the obscenity of it would work hard to give most of it away. Those who are not offended by the obscenity of it will be happy to keep it, so there's a selection bias to it.