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Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#471
Meta's problem is not models but doing something productive with them. Meta never really nailed that. Just like Google is struggling with this. And MS. It's the classic disruptors dilemma. In order to embrace the new thing, they have to let go of the old thing that has made them rich.

If you look beyond the somewhat tone deaf leadership, the somewhat stale business model of social media, etc. Meta doesn't actually have a whole lot to bring to the table. They probably managed to hire/keep some AI talent with the help of large salaries. But they are knee deep into having made big figure commitments to data center capacity with nothing to show for it yet. Their AI effort is increasingly looking like a repeat of their failed metaverse strategy. A lot of expensive bets that are not paying off.

It all boils down to Mark Zuckerberg not being the visionary and innovator he thinks he is. Like many billionaires he confuses him lucking out in his twenties with some magical leadership qualities or brain capacity he has. And the reality of course is that he lucked into building a nice social networking thingy not hindered by too much technical skill or deep scientific knowledge. Granted, he did that well. But that's 20 years ago. And then he added to that with some strategic acquisitions of stuff that others did (Whatsapp, Instagram, etc) that you might label as spectacularly good acquisitions for Meta.

But he's not going to reinvent AI. He's way out of his depth there. A bit of a technical lightweight without much academic credentials or much of a vision. His "vision" here is copying what the Chinese and others are already doing well. What's lacking is a vision as to how his version of that is going to be any better and win over all those users. Or indeed a vision as to what people are going to do with all this AI. Apparently there is no vision for that in the context of Meta's own products. This is a company going through the motions of being an AI company without any vision whatsoever as to why they are doing that other than a fear of missing out.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#472

I think something that doesn't get said enough is Meta did, albeit intentionally kick off the origin of the open source race back in 2023 with the release of llama. I'm not a big fan of meta in general, but they've done enough good, and it's possible that it was intentional as well. I don't know, I wasn't in the rooms, and I think it's worth giving them some reasonable doubt. No one is purely good, and no one is pure…

I have mixed feelings along these lines, I know meta have contributed to various open projects, sometimes Mark pays lip service to “the open internet" while his company represents a constilation of walled gardens. I think PHP got some love, and React is an industry goto (I'm more of a PHP... -> Svelte guy) but are these contributions worth what happened in Myanmar? I say no.

> React is an industry goto

Tbh React might be as unforgivable as the Myanmar genocide

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#473

I think something that doesn't get said enough is Meta did, albeit intentionally kick off the origin of the open source race back in 2023 with the release of llama. I'm not a big fan of meta in general, but they've done enough good, and it's possible that it was intentional as well. I don't know, I wasn't in the rooms, and I think it's worth giving them some reasonable doubt. No one is purely good, and no one is pure…

Ha-ha they released nothing. It got leaked and without the source for it. Totally wrong to portray them as benevolent benefactors to the ML race

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#474

My favorite paragraph from Zuckerberg's writeup: """ [...] it is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom. I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity's relevance would rush to build that future. The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic. Historic…

Am I the only one getting the impression this dude was merely lucky back in the day, in fact at the right time, rather than having been super intelligent nor forward thinking… ?

I mean - given all his throw outs in media and his apparent burn of nearly 80bn for a failed 3D world?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#475

Comments here are surprising to me. I get folks don’t like Zuckerberg and his company and don’t trust his intentions… I don’t either. But this is an unquestionably good thing right?. The more open source software out there the better. And the more open weights or even over source AI stuff the better too right? More competition the better generally speaking I think. Unless I’m missing something and am getting this who…

I think it's positive and at the very least it's a force countervailing the push to legislate or ban open models in the US

If they were able to make a leading closed model would they be doing it though? It seems like they read the room and saw that this is the only way they can have relevance within LLMs

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has already been the case for at least my whole lifetime. And for my entire lifetime people have acted the way I'm criticizing. So my request is "the status quo isn't working, let's try something different." So I'm not sure what your argument is. Maybe you see things differently than me and there is a time where we were more nuanced and provided signals for these big companies to course correct? I'm not a boom…

> provided signals for these big companies to course correct We're on the subject of Zuckerberg: facebook is the poster child for enshittification. Do you think the idea to stop showing you your friends pictures and replace them with ads and ragebaiting short form videos came from the users? > people have acted the way I'm criticizing. You are ignoring the myriad of billionaire fanboys and enablers for whom the only…

  > You are ignoring
I am not.

But if you're unwilling to have a nuanced take then there's no discussion to be had. You're just going to be yelling at me, someone who hates Zuckerberg. You're yelling at the wrong person

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#477

Comments here are surprising to me. I get folks don’t like Zuckerberg and his company and don’t trust his intentions… I don’t either. But this is an unquestionably good thing right?. The more open source software out there the better. And the more open weights or even over source AI stuff the better too right? More competition the better generally speaking I think. Unless I’m missing something and am getting this who…

Not if you are worried about the existential threat AI poses. Having easily available AI makes it hardier to regulate, control and limit until we find a way to align AI. Harder to control is a good thing for most technologies, but not for all. A weak analogy is nuclear weapons. if Meta would release and open source some tech that would magically make extremely easy and cheap for everyone to build a nuke, it would not be a positive for society.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be coy, but what is happening right now? You definitely have some scams and some software flaws being exposed, but I think for a revolutionary leap in tech this is all quite muted. Revolutionary tech advances often come with some severe consequences. For instance, to this day (after a century of safety improvements) cars still kill more than a million people a year, to say nothing of wrecking the atmosphere, b…

Thats like, your opinion man... I don't know a single white collar person who isn't worried for their job with llms. Every. Single. One. Lawyers, doctors, any type of office workers I ask. The definition of white collar. Plus don't let me start on various automatable blue collar jobs like drivers, warehouse workers and so on. What do we get in return? Better search (for now, its already getting riddled with ads which…

I think I can agree with that. Technology does seem to have a way of crystallizing our worst tendencies.

I smiled at the analogy, but I would caution you to not trivialize it. There is a reason executives are pushing that point. There is enough of a revolution in it to make things complicated -- as if it was not already.

True, but I am not quite certain what can be done about it at a personal level.

Dunno. Next few years are probably going to be fine. Society managers likely can't upend everything in one go. They would lose too much. I can't say that I am worried exactly. I can see the potential impact, but I think the potential benefits are worth it as long as we don't limit it to summarizing emails..

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can characterize the discussion around then as simple calling for caution. There was a serious attempt to keep all access to even very basic LLM techniques locked into essentially an exclusive guild.

If you grab the most extreme examples you can argue anything. The general feeling was “exercise caution” and “we need to think about this.”

Oh stop, the current crop of kneecapping llms is already bad enough with how they cripple those. It would have been even worse if the 'we need to think about this' crowd kept the reins. At least now, we can have both: safe corporate crap and whatever you want llm.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg attacks 'closed' AI rivals as Meta returns to open models

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh fuck, tjwebbnorfolk's got demands. Time to start working nights.

It's already been trained. GDM said it was going to be released and it hasn't yet. Not sure why so much snark

Don’t ask engineers at big companies for release dates, they either don’t know or are not at liberty to say.
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