3 ms·

Is Llama remaining open an example of meta attempting to commoditize its complement?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
In my opinion, no, since it isn’t clear how an LLM is a complement to Meta’s core businesses or who is affected by that commoditization. Maybe others can educate me about that. My view is that they have the key capabilities to build high performance LLMs - talent, cash (for hardware), data - so they might as well do it just to stay relevant. They may ultimately create innovations that are ahead of everyone else (like the JEPA architecture that Yann LeCun is pushing) but until then, at least they’re proving to users and investors that they still have bleeding edge technical capabilities. And sure they may find ways to use these models in new incremental features in their existing products (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) - but they don’t have a great way to reach users even if they had new AI-centric products to offer (more below). At least they get some good marketing by putting open weight models out there as an alternative to big players pushing closed models and services. I think a big problem for Meta is that they don’t have a way to put a new AI-centric standalone product or service in front of users. That’s because the main platform owners - Microsoft for Windows, Google (or Samsung) for Android, and Apple for iOS/MacOS - will act in anti-competitive ways, push their own services, bundle their own services, and otherwise prevent others companies from getting a fair shot at the market. We see this already with Microsoft forcing Copilot buttons on every keyboard, effectively creating a default choice of Microsoft-owned AI services. It’s the 90s all over again, and at least in the US, competition laws are woefully inadequate and long overdue for a rewrite. So what’s someone like Meta going to do without that ability to freely compete for users? Apart from minor uses within their apps, I think they are just biding their time.
unraveller 3y ago
And it will likely also be a lesson in "performance oversupply", that is never releasing more value than you absolutely have to to stay ahead and always leave them gagging for more a.k.a. apple cult mode

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

In my opinion, no, since it isn’t clear how an LLM is a complement to Meta’s core businesses or who is affected by that commoditization. Maybe others can educate me about that. My view is that they have the key capabilities to build high performance LLMs - talent, cash (for hardware), data - so they might as well do it just to stay relevant. They may ultimately create innovations that are ahead of everyone else (like the JEPA architecture that Yann LeCun is pushing) but until then, at least they’re proving to users and investors that they still have bleeding edge technical capabilities. And sure they may find ways to use these models in new incremental features in their existing products (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) - but they don’t have a great way to reach users even if they had new AI-centric products to offer (more below). At least they get some good marketing by putting open weight models out there as an alternative to big players pushing closed models and services. I think a big problem for Meta is that they don’t have a way to put a new AI-centric standalone product or service in front of users. That’s because the main platform owners - Microsoft for Windows, Google (or Samsung) for Android, and Apple for iOS/MacOS - will act in anti-competitive ways, push their own services, bundle their own services, and otherwise prevent others companies from getting a fair shot at the market. We see this already with Microsoft forcing Copilot buttons on every keyboard, effectively creating a default choice of Microsoft-owned AI services. It’s the 90s all over again, and at least in the US, competition laws are woefully inadequate and long overdue for a rewrite. So what’s someone like Meta going to do without that ability to freely compete for users? Apart from minor uses within their apps, I think they are just biding their time.

unraveller 3y ago

And it will likely also be a lesson in "performance oversupply", that is never releasing more value than you absolutely have to to stay ahead and always leave them gagging for more a.k.a. apple cult mode