Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#421

Post by quantadev » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

mirekrusin wrote: post #356

quantadev wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China Government can create the poisoned Trojan Horse LLMs, and then simply feed it to the USA, because people in the USA have a false sense of security about Open Weights LLMs they self-host. People think if you self-host stuff you're totally safe, but the weights can be pre-poisoned. AFAIK the threat vector I'm identifying has never been exploited, and I've never even heard anyone else describe or mention it.

When they mention open weight models (llama, deepseek) they mean running them on their infra, not through 3rd party apis, right?

Open Weights LLM Models can be run by anyone. They're just a downloadable data file.

So, yes there are companies (in both China and USA) that do host them for you as well. For example I think Perplexity does host DeepSeek R1, so people who don't have their own hardware can still make use of it.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#422

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

I find strange the assumption that Microsoft could run the same models cheaper. It's not like openai knows how to do it and is choosing not to.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#423

Post by YetAnotherNick » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 7:01 PM UTC

klelatti wrote: post #400

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard but not $3T hard. AMD has consistently underinvested in their software. If they invest double digit million to make installation and usage of drivers and ROCM smoother I highly doubt they can't acheive it. There are open source projects volunteer run projects[1] that are better than official AMD implementation in many ways. [1]: https://github.com/CHIP-SPV/chipStar/

If it's so cheap and easy then why haven't they done it already? ChatGPT was announced Nov 22. The opportunity has been clear for two years and still essential software breaks.

Because they have to rethink a lot organizationaly to put more effort into software. If installing their drivers is so flaky you can't argue they really are trying or putting their best folks in this. Single click installation on top 10 linux distro is something even one (top in the industry)person could achieve.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#424

Post by bornfreddy » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 7:13 PM UTC

iamdelirium wrote: post #325

grepLeigh wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an outsider looking at Microsoft, I've always been impressed by the attention to maintaining legacy APIs and backward compatibility in the Windows ecosystem. In my mind, Microsoft is at the opposite end of the killedbygoogle.com spectrum. However, none of this is grounded in real evidence (just perception). Red Hat is another company I'd put forth as an example of a long-term support culture, although I don't know…

I don't understand where this idea that Microsoft doesn't kill projects. Zune, Games for Windows Live, Skype, Encarta, CodePlex, Windows Phone, Internet Explorer. https://killedbymicrosoft.info/

Well, Skype is the only one I'd miss, and after years of neglect I won't cry after it either. As for IE - good riddance. They could add Teams and Sharepoint to that list as far as I'm concerned.

So maybe the difference is that Google kills projects that people love, while MS only kills unloved ones?

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#425

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 7:27 PM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #257

bsimpson wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a phrase I learned from my mom/grandpa growing up. "On the square" means "but I also mean it."

"on the square" means "honest" in the same sense that "crooked" means dishonest. think of carpentry, if something is not on the square, it's crooked.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#426

Post by nashashmi » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:53 PM UTC

curtisblaine wrote: post #372

nashashmi wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont offer excessive money. Money is like shit whose smell attracts flies. The more money starts entering the system, the more flies come in. The more flies, the more rigorous the vetting process. That's where the infamous google hiring system started kicking in.

Are you proposing... not paying your employees because paying them will attract people who do it for the money?

Isn’t that what makes startups special ?

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#427

Post by bashfulpup » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 9:12 PM UTC

tw1984 wrote: post #392

bashfulpup wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In context learning, learning via training. Both are things we barely understand the mechanism of. RAG is a basically a perfect example to understand the limits of in context learning and AI in general. It's faults are easier to understand but the same as any AI vs AGI problem. I could go on but CL is a massive gap of our knowledge and likely the only thing missing to AGI.

> RAG is a basically a perfect example to understand the limits of in context learning and AI in general. How? RAG is not even in the field of AI.

Long explanation. Simple terms, you can't use a fixed box to solve an unbounded problem space. If your problem fits within the box it works, if it doesn't, you need CL.

I tried to solve this via expanding the embedding/retrieval space but realized it's the same as CL and in my definition of it I was trying to solve AGI. I did a lot of unique algorithms and architectures but Unsuprisingly, I never solved this.

I am thankful I finally understood this quote.

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#428

Post by ttepasse » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 9:41 PM UTC

reverius42 wrote: post #263

wkat4242 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing golf while bantering with your old boys network is going to be hard to automate :)

The banter is actually quite easy to automate. You can hire a human to play golf for a small fraction of what the CEOs get paid, and then it's best of both worlds.

With preexisting knowledge of military artillery arithmetic a a golf robot should not be impossible.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#429

Post by ipaddr » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #362

ipaddr wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more senior I get the less opinionated I am. Someone wants to do something in some different or some different way.. why not. In the end the language matters little the tech stack doesn't matter unless you are going down a specific path and even then it probably doesn't matter that much if you have a choice on what to use.

I honestly couldn't disagree more. Having built very similar systems in Golang, Python, and Java in different companies, and having used MongoDB and other NoSQLs as well as Postgres to similar ends, I have very strong preferences about which I'd rather use in the future. Even simple requirements can rule out languages for me. Like, if you need async or concurrency, Python is awful. If you need SQL in your code, Golan…

You are trying to choose between languages based on differentiation. This language is better for x so it should be used or it's a waste time or capability.

But in reality it rarely matters. If you were only allowed to use Java as a backend and your competitors could use anything your company would succeed or fail based on marketing and sales. The backend doesn't matter as long as they both have the same features.

I understand developer preference and different languages make things easier and make programming funnier. Languages have different limits.

As you become more senior you realize getting around those limits is part of the magic. If you come on to a project where the existing developer wants to write the backend in javascript because that's what they know I would rather use Javascript then wasting time trying to push a more 'pure' choice. Because in the end I am capable of writing it and what we will be judged on is if it works to achieve an objective not if it was the best language choice when using differentiation.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#430

Post by toasterlovin » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 12:09 AM UTC

swat535 wrote: post #318

toasterlovin wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you can call ChatGPT a product. It has zero switching cost. In consumer markets the moat is habits. The switching cost for Google Search is zero. The switching cost for Coke is zero. The switching cost for Crest toothpaste is zero. Yet nobody switches.

Not to nitpick but.. 1. The switching cost from Google Search is certainly not zero, it implies switching from Google, which is virtually impossible because it's tied to Chrome, YouTube, Android and Gmail 2. I don't know many people who are dedicated "Pepsi" fans, they just grab whatever drink is available Coke/Pepsi.. 3. I've also not heard many people who are never willing to switch from "Crest".. People will just…

You’re standing in the aisle at the supermarket, looking at the soda. Everything is in stock. What do you grab? Most people make the same decision for their entire life: Coke. That is the moat that Pepsi has been trying to overcome for decades.