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Open source AI is the path forward

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Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#611

Post by the8thbit »

beloch wrote: post #557
the8thbit wrote: post #12

"Eventually though, open source Linux gained popularity – initially because it allowed developers to modify its code however they wanted ..." I find the language around "open source AI" to be confusing. With "open source" there's usually "source" to open, right? As in, there is human legible code that can be read and modified by the user? If so, then how can current ML models be open source? They're very large matric…

It's no secret that implementing AI usually involves far more investment into training and teaching than actual code. You can know how a neural net or other ML model works. You can have all the code before you. It's still a huge job (and investment) to do anything practical with that. If Meta shares the code their AI runs on with you, you're not going to be able to do much with it unless you make the same investment…

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I don't think its technically feasible for current models to be open source, because there is no source code to open. Yes, there is a harness that runs the model, but the vast, vast amount of instructions are contained in the model weights, which are akin to a compiled binary.

If we make large strides in interpretability we may have something resembling source code, but we're certainly not there yet. I don't think the solution to that problem should be to change the definition of open source and pretend the problem has been solved.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#612

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #7

“The Heavy Press Program was a Cold War-era program of the United States Air Force to build the largest forging presses and extrusion presses in the world.” This ”program began in 1944 and concluded in 1957 after construction of four forging presses and six extruders, at an overall cost of $279 million. Six of them are still in operation today, manufacturing structural parts for military and commercial aircraft” [1].…

[deleted]

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#613

Post by Spivak »

seoulmetro wrote: post #567
alfalfasprout wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not safer. The claim is that OpenAI will enforce guard rails and take steps to ensure model outputs and prompts are responsible... but only a fool would take them at their word.

Yeah.. and Facebook said they would enforce censorship on their platforms to ensure content safety.. that didn't turn out so well. Now it just censors anything remotely controversial, such as World War 2 historical facts or even just slightly offensive wording.

You're really just arguing about the tuning. I get that it's annoying as a user but as a moderator going into it with the mentality that any post is expendable and bringing down the banhammer on everything near the line keeps things civil. HN does that too with the no flame-bait rule.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#614

Post by Geezus_42 »

hluska wrote: post #307
dmix wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a shortage of capital for AI... probably the opposite Of all the things to expand the scope of government spending why would they choose AI, or more specifically GPUs?

Look at it from the perspective of an elected official: If it succeeds, you were ahead of the curve. If it fails, you were prudent enough to fund an investigation early. Either way, bleeding edge tech gives you a W.

Or you wasted a bunch of tax payer money on some over hyped and over funded nonsense.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#615

Post by Spivak »

endorphine wrote: post #605
Spivak wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't open source Linux because bad people might run servers? Can you imagine the disinformation they could spread with those? With enough of them you could have a massively global site made entirely for spreading it. God what if such a thing got into the hands of an egocentric billionaire?

An operating system is not "generative", hence it's not a force multiplier.

Are we on the same forum? Our entire field is building force multipliers to extend ourselves well beyond of what we're capable as individuals and the OS is tool that lets you get it done. Scale is like.. our entire thing. I feel like we're just so used to the world with computers that we forget how much power they allow people to wield. Which, honestly is maybe a good sign for the next of tools because AI isn't going to be more impactful than computers and we all survived.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#616

Post by vasili111 »

photonthug wrote: post #519
CardenB wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful that GPUs purchased today would be in use for a similar time scale. Govt investment would also drive the cost of GPUs up a great deal. Not sure why a publicly accessible GPU cluster would be a better solution than the current system of research grants.

> Not sure why a publicly accessible GPU cluster would be a better solution than the current system of research grants. You mean a better solution than different teams paying AWS over and over, potentially spending 10x on rent rather than using all that cash as a down payment on actually owning hardware? I can't really speak for the total costs of depreciation/hardware maintenance but renting forever isn't usually a…

AWS is not only hardware but also software, documentation, support and more.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#617

Post by stale2002 »

the8thbit wrote: post #610
stale2002 wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My central point is this: "are available for most people to use for a lot of stuff, and this is way way better than what competitors like OpenAI offer." I presume you agree with it. > rather than serving access Its not the same access though. I am sure that you are creative enough to think of many questions that you could ask llama3, that would instead get you kicked off of OpenAI. > They don't "[allow] developers to…

> Actually, the fact that the model weights are available means that you can even ignore any limitations that you think are on it, and you'll probably just get away with it. You are also ignoring the fact that the limitations are minimal to most people. The limitations here are technical, not legal. (Though I am aware of the legal restrictions as well, and I think its worth noting that no other project would get by c…

So then yes you agree with this:

"are available for most people to use for a lot of stuff, and this is way way better than what competitors like OpenAI offer." And that this is very significant.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#618

Post by sitkack »

gowld wrote: post #460
aerzen wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLAMA is an open-weights model. I like this term, let's use that instead of open source.

Can a human programmer edit the weights according to some semantics?

Yes, there is the concept of a "frakenmerge" and folks have also bolted on vision and audio models to LLMs.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#619

Post by salawat »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #86
gpm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. But I do want to limit the amount we reward NVIDIA for calling the shots correctly to maximize the benefit to society. For instance by reducing the duration of the government granted monopolies on chip technology that is obsolete well before the default duration of 20 years is over. That said, it strikes me that the actual limiting factor is fab capacity not nvidia's designs and we probably need to lift the monop…

> reducing the duration of the government granted monopolies on chip technology that is obsolete well before the default duration of 20 years is over Why do you think these private entities are willing to invest the massive capital it takes to keep the frontier advancing at that rate? > I do want to limit the amount we reward NVIDIA for calling the shots correctly to maximize the benefit to society Why wouldn't NVIDI…

>Why wouldn't NVIDIA be a solid steward of that capital given their track record?

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Re: Open source AI is the path forward

#620

Post by jszymborski »

xena wrote: post #352
jszymborski wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you've rightly pointed out, we have the mechanism, now let's fund it properly! I'm in Canada, and our science funding has likewise fallen year after year as a proportion of our GDP. I'm still benefiting from A100 clusters funded by tax payer dollars, but think of the advantage we'd have over industry if we didn't have to fight over resources.

Where do you get access to those as a member of the general public?

I get my resources through a combination of servers my lab bought with using a government grant and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (nee Compute Canada)'s cluster.

These resources aren't available to the public, but if I were king for a day we'd increase science funding such that we'd have compute resources available to high-school students and the general public (possibly following training on how to use it).

Making sure folks didn't use it to mine bitcoin would be important, though ;)

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