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Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

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Re: Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

#41

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As a founder of an FL startup, I strongly advise against using FedML as it is one of the worst frameworks in terms of scalability. Regrettably, the FedML team has also a poor reputation due to their toxicity and suspicious behavior. If you value the trustworthiness of your product, I suggest avoiding FedML at all costs.

Re: Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

#42
post #2

It has been shown that the input data can be reverse-engineered from the model weights. How do you deal with this issue?

looks like they've introduced some differential privacy wrappers, the changelog points to that: https://github.com/adap/flower/blob/94a1f942abfce5dff4e9aff2...

Thanks for adding this here! We added these DP wrappers, and we're working on something similar for Secure Aggregation, but I must admit that we have to document them better to make using them easier for everyone

Re: Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the question, very natural to ask. We are also fans of PySft. It offers support for a very wide range of privacy enhancing machine learning tools. But where Flower and PySft differ is in focus. Federated learning is difficult and requires many technical moving parts all working together (e.g., secure aggregation, differential privacy, scalable simulation, device deployments, integration with conventional M…

Can confirm that PySyft is currently in the process of integrating with Flower. Best of both worlds.

Indeed - looking forward to this

Re: Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

#44

[dead]

As a founder of an FL startup, I strongly advise against using FedML as it is one of the worst frameworks in terms of scalability. Regrettably, the FedML team has also a poor reputation due to their toxicity and suspicious behavior. If you value the trustworthiness of your product, I suggest avoiding FedML at all costs.

LOL, starting FL wars, are we? I never tested FedML in production but it was cool for simple experiments. I concur with what you are saying though about their devs. The CTO is super sus.

Re: Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

#45
Another interesting use case - government training models on legislatively protected data (e.g. tax data). Lots of data the government holds is governed by confidentiality restrictions built into legislation, limiting its utility. Sounds like federated learning could be a way around that.

Re: Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

#49
post #46

This is really cool. Federated learning seems like it could unlock a lot of value in healthcare settings. Have you had any luck convincing hospitals / insurers / etc that this satisfies HIPAA and is safe? How do you convince them?

What about patients? I would be very, very worried about going to a health provider that participated in this.

Re: Launch HN: Flower (YC W23) – Train AI models on distributed or sensitive data

#50
Many congratulations! Glad to hear about UK & EU collaborative innovation in open-source projects. Keep up the fantastic work!

Others asked similar question regarding comparable projects. What's your take on OpenFL from Intel? Do you think Flower moves into more commercial-MLOps direction? Looks like OpenFL particularly focused on to academic imaging community.

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