| ▲ | SwellJoe 3 hours ago |
| Open Source AI is challenging. Even tiny models require tremendous resources to produce, so all the things we know about "open source" for software, like a random person in Nebraska can produce a critical piece of the world's infrastructure in their spare time, don't apply. Actually open source AI is more like scientific research. It needs public funding and reputable institutions as stewards of that funding. I'm hopeful Allen AI is able to do the things, but I'm not sure the US is moving in the direction it needs to be to get to the point where AI in the public interest is something we invest in. But, also Photoshop is not at all comparable to open weight models. I can't legally give you a copy of Photoshop, but I can give you a copy of GLM 5.2. There are free proprietary applications out there that fit the bill, Photoshop isn't one of them. |
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| ▲ | parl_match 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Open Source AI is challenging. Even tiny models require tremendous resources to produce, so all the things we know about "open source" for software, like a random person in Nebraska can produce a critical piece of the world's infrastructure in their spare time, don't apply. No, but a small university team with dark time on the state school system's cluster can build a basic, functional LLM. It will be a few years (or more) until true "open source" LLMs are available and high quality, for sure. But it's not as impenetrable as it seems, IMO. |
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| ▲ | SwellJoe an hour ago | parent [-] | | "No, but a small university team with dark time on the state school system's cluster can build a basic, functional LLM." Hey, remember when we were just talking about how it "needs public funding and reputable institutions as stewards of that funding"? (Hint: A state school system is a reputable institution running on public funding.) | | |
| ▲ | parl_match 37 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I have nothing to say back other than: That's a very snarky and unnecessarily hostile tone to take with someone who is agreeing with you. | | |
| ▲ | SwellJoe 2 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, I took "No, but" as a disagreement. You're right I was unnecessarily snarky about it. |
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| ▲ | petcat 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| OK so replace the Photoshop example with a compiled GIMP or shareware binary. It doesn't change the fact that it is not open source. The free software community complains all the time about binary blobs that are otherwise legal to freely distribute. Like firmwares. But somehow this is all overlooked with these "open weight" models. |
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| ▲ | SwellJoe an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not at all disagreeing with you about calling these models "open source". They mostly aren't and we should stop conflating the two things. | | |
| ▲ | thewebguyd 22 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I think using the term "open" at all in relation to these models is a misnomer. Much in the same way we've spent a lot of time and effort distinguishing "open source" from "source available" Perhaps instead of "Open weight model" it should be "Weights available model" | | |
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| ▲ | elpocko 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I agree with you in general, it's not "Open Source". But in many cases you're allowed to fork them, and create and distribute derivative works (finetunes) from open models, and the training and inference code is also permissively licensed. That's not shareware. And working with the binary weights of a huge pretained model is much easier and cheaper than doing it based on the entirety of its humongous source datasets. | |
| ▲ | DonHopkins 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Lord forbid open source models have as horrible a user interface as GIMP! |
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| ▲ | embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Open Source AI is challenging. Even tiny models require tremendous resources to produce, so all the things we know about "open source" for software Compiling/creating the Linux kernel or Chromium is no child's dance either, doesn't make them more/less FOSS than other things. Open Source AI gets its name from the license, not how easy/difficult it is to run/produce yourself. |
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| ▲ | SwellJoe 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Compiling/creating the Linux kernel or Chromium is no child's dance either" I can compile the Linux kernel on a modest 15 year old laptop. Sure, it took 35 years and thousands of people to build it into what it is today, but anyone with pretty much any computer can meaningfully participate in Linux kernel development, and many Linux contributors have done so using modest hardware. The same is not true of AI. And, the Linux kernel is the biggest open source project, but plenty of small ones with one or two developers are in use on millions of systems. I have pretty big hardware for local AI, more than most people have (a Strix Halo and a couple of 32GB GPUs in my desktop), but I can barely train anything useful locally; I can do QLoRAs for small models, or LoRAs for very small models, that's about the extent of it. I would need to rent big GPUs to do anything more than an experiment. That's not comparable. |
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| ▲ | antonvs 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > But, also Photoshop is not at all comparable to open weight models. I can't legally give you a copy of Photoshop Please tell me this level of obtuseness is deliberate. |
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| ▲ | SwellJoe 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't know what you mean, so, if I am obtuse it is from a genuine lack of understanding. What is obtuse about that statement? |
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