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Maybe it is just Zuck trying to atone himself for the damage he brought to the world. Open source AI (as in various ML/AI models developed and inferring in peop

Maybe it is just Zuck trying to atone himself for the damage he brought to the world. Open source AI (as in various ML/AI models developed and inferring in people's own devices) is a game changer with ramifications that are still hard to discern. E.g., what does "user content" mean anymore when you can interpolate and extrapolate from any publicly available bit of information to create infinite "near replicas"? Rationally, in such an uncertain future where the technical, legal and social boundaries and guardrails are not even sketched yet what makes sense is to keep near the ring but not in it (no need to receive random punches given you are already the designated punchbag) and above all: keep fit.

gmerc 3y ago
Is there any, I mean any indication at all Zuck would be ready to atone for anything? His teary “I take responsibility” perhaps, backed by which action? His reduction of integrity staffing around the world perhaps? His “we connect the world” and because connecting the world is good? His shutting down of transparency reporting maybe? He’s done this exact game before, commoditize your complements.
- nologic01 3y ago
  > He’s done this exact game before, commoditize your complements. I would not argue with your previous points (I would be a very unlikely defender of Zuck's worldview :-) but this last one takes some discussion. It is years after pytorch (mentioned in the article as the google/tensorflow competitor) was released and its not clear which complement has been commoditized, if any. Tensorflow is also open source so it cannot be further commoditized. The main entities affected by the rapid development of open source ML platforms are niche proprietary vendors of algorithmic tools - hardly Meta's complement. People have advanced various reasons (keeping internal staff happy, attracting talent, buying good will etc) but releasing various AI tools in order to ensure "continuing commercial dominance in adtech" would be a very long game indeed. Happy to be enlightened if somebody can connect the dots deep into the future.
  - gmerc 3y ago
    Pytorch fits in the same bucket as datacenter hardware. By giving the designs away they drove the price down, made it easier and cheaper to hire people familiar with the technology and reduced the risk of sitting on an outdated stack being overtaken by someone else (or worse, someone else capturing open source momentum). What happened with llama and stable diffusion is (another) cautionary tale for anyone gambling on proprietary technology advantages. Your competitors can hurt you both directly and indirectly if you leave the open source route open and Sam Altman being on world diplomacy tours selling regulators on the dream they can control AI China style by regulating a few willing large companies makes a lot more sense when you compare the open source trajectory against proprietary models (and because Meta doesn’t charge, they are a slippery fish to action). Meta easily shaved billions of dollars from the proprietary market over time at very little cost to themselves because LLama was an existing long term investment whose primary costs were already incurred at release time and it had no serious market viability as a proprietary model without vastly more investment and cost. It’s the open source contributions that made it competitive.

gmerc 3y ago

Is there any, I mean any indication at all Zuck would be ready to atone for anything? His teary “I take responsibility” perhaps, backed by which action? His reduction of integrity staffing around the world perhaps? His “we connect the world” and because connecting the world is good? His shutting down of transparency reporting maybe? He’s done this exact game before, commoditize your complements.

nologic01 3y ago
> He’s done this exact game before, commoditize your complements. I would not argue with your previous points (I would be a very unlikely defender of Zuck's worldview :-) but this last one takes some discussion. It is years after pytorch (mentioned in the article as the google/tensorflow competitor) was released and its not clear which complement has been commoditized, if any. Tensorflow is also open source so it cannot be further commoditized. The main entities affected by the rapid development of open source ML platforms are niche proprietary vendors of algorithmic tools - hardly Meta's complement. People have advanced various reasons (keeping internal staff happy, attracting talent, buying good will etc) but releasing various AI tools in order to ensure "continuing commercial dominance in adtech" would be a very long game indeed. Happy to be enlightened if somebody can connect the dots deep into the future.
- gmerc 3y ago
  Pytorch fits in the same bucket as datacenter hardware. By giving the designs away they drove the price down, made it easier and cheaper to hire people familiar with the technology and reduced the risk of sitting on an outdated stack being overtaken by someone else (or worse, someone else capturing open source momentum). What happened with llama and stable diffusion is (another) cautionary tale for anyone gambling on proprietary technology advantages. Your competitors can hurt you both directly and indirectly if you leave the open source route open and Sam Altman being on world diplomacy tours selling regulators on the dream they can control AI China style by regulating a few willing large companies makes a lot more sense when you compare the open source trajectory against proprietary models (and because Meta doesn’t charge, they are a slippery fish to action). Meta easily shaved billions of dollars from the proprietary market over time at very little cost to themselves because LLama was an existing long term investment whose primary costs were already incurred at release time and it had no serious market viability as a proprietary model without vastly more investment and cost. It’s the open source contributions that made it competitive.