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I sell widgets. I promise the incalculable power of widgets has yet to be unleashed on the world, but it is tremendous and awesome and we should all be very afr

by splwjs 2y ago

I sell widgets. I promise the incalculable power of widgets has yet to be unleashed on the world, but it is tremendous and awesome and we should all be very afraid of widgets taking over the world because I can't see how they won't. Anyway here's the sales page. the widget subscription is so premium you won't even miss the subscription fee.

sqeaky 2y ago
That is strong (and fun) point, but this is peer reviewable and has more open collaboration elements than purely selling widgets. We should still be skeptical because often want to claim to be better or have unearned answers, but I don't think the motive to lie is quite as strong as a salesman's.
- troupo 2y ago
  > this is peer reviewable It's not peer-reviewable in any shape or form.
  - hnfong 2y ago
    It is kind of "peer-reviewable" in the "Elon Musk vs Yann LeCun" form, but I doubt that the original commenter meant this.
  - sqeaky 2y ago
    Others can build models that try to have decent performance with a lower number of parameters. If they match what is in the paper that is the crudest form of review, but Mistral is releasing some models (this one?) so this can get more nuanced if needs. That said, doing that is slow and people will need to make decisions before that is done.
    - troupo 2y ago
      So, the best you can do is "the crudest form of review"?
_uhtu 2y ago
This. It's really weird the way we suddenly live in a world where it's the norm to take whatever a tech company says about future products at face value. This is the same world where Tesla promised "zero intervention LA to NYC self driving" by the end of the year in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. The same world where we know for a fact that multiple GenAI demos by multiple companies were just completely faked. It's weird. In the late 2010s it seems like people were wising up to the idea that you can't implicitly trust big tech companies, even if they have nap pods in the office and have their first day employees wear funny hats. Then ChatGPT lands and everyone is back to fully trusting these companies when they say they are mere months from turning the world upside down with their AI, which they say every month for the last 12-24 months.
- cle 2y ago
  I'm not sure anyone is asking you to take it at face value or implicitly trust them? There's a 92-page paper with details: https://ai.meta.com/research/publications/the-llama-3-herd-of-models/ https://ai.meta.com/research/publications/the-llama-3-herd-o...
- hnfong 2y ago
  > In the late 2010s it seems like people were wising up to the idea that you can't implicitly trust big tech companies In the 2000s we only had Microsoft, and none of us were confused as to whether to trust Bill Gates or not...
- mikae1 2y ago
  Nobody tells it like Zitron: https://www.wheresyoured.at/pop-culture/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/pop-culture/ > What makes this interview – and really, this paper — so remarkable is how thoroughly and aggressively it attacks every bit of marketing collateral the AI movement has. Acemoglu specifically questions the belief that AI models will simply get more powerful as we throw more data and GPU capacity at them, and specifically ask a question: what does it mean to "double AI's capabilities"? How does that actually make something like, say, a customer service rep better? And this is a specific problem with the AI fantasists' spiel. They heavily rely on the idea that not only will these large language models (LLMs) get more powerful, but that getting more powerful will somehow grant it the power to do...something. As Acemoglu says, "what does it mean to double AI's capabilities?"
ctoth 2y ago
Wouldn't the equivalent for Meta actually be something like: > Other companies sell widgets. We have a bunch of widget-making machines and so we released a whole bunch of free widgets. We noticed that the widgets got better the more we made and expect widgets to become even better in future. Anyway here's the free download. Given that Meta isn't actually selling their models? Your response might make sense if it were to something OpenAI or Anthropic said, but as is I can't say I follow the analogy.
ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
If OpenAI was saying this you'd have a point but I wouldn't call Facebook a widget seller in this case when they're giving their widgets away for free.
camel_Snake 2y ago
Meta doesn't sell widgets in this scenario - they give them away for free. Their competition sells widgets, so Meta would be perfectly happy if the widget market totally collapsed.
mattnewton 2y ago
that would make sense if it was from Openai, but Meta doesn't actually sell these widgets? They release the widget machines for free in the hopes that other people will build a widget ecosystem around them to rival the closed widget ecosystem that threatens to lock them out of a potential "next platform" powered by widgets.
littlestymaar 2y ago
Except: Meta doesn't sell AI at all. Zuck is just doing this for two reasons: - flex - deal a blow to Altmann
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Meta uses ai in all the recommendation algorithms. They absolutely hope to turn their chat assistants into a product on WhatsApp too, and GenAI is crucial to creating the metaverse. This isn’t just a charity case.
  - PodgieTar 2y ago
    There are literal ads for Meta Ai on television. The idea they’re not selling something is absurd.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    AI isn't a single thing: of course meta didn't buy thousands of GPUs for fun. But it has nothing to do with LLMs (and interestingly enough they aren't opening their recommendation tech).
X6S1x6Okd1st 2y ago
But Meta isn't selling it

by splwjs 2y ago

sqeaky 2y ago

That is strong (and fun) point, but this is peer reviewable and has more open collaboration elements than purely selling widgets. We should still be skeptical because often want to claim to be better or have unearned answers, but I don't think the motive to lie is quite as strong as a salesman's.

troupo 2y ago
> this is peer reviewable It's not peer-reviewable in any shape or form.
- hnfong 2y ago
  It is kind of "peer-reviewable" in the "Elon Musk vs Yann LeCun" form, but I doubt that the original commenter meant this.
- sqeaky 2y ago
  Others can build models that try to have decent performance with a lower number of parameters. If they match what is in the paper that is the crudest form of review, but Mistral is releasing some models (this one?) so this can get more nuanced if needs. That said, doing that is slow and people will need to make decisions before that is done.
  - troupo 2y ago
    So, the best you can do is "the crudest form of review"?

_uhtu 2y ago

This. It's really weird the way we suddenly live in a world where it's the norm to take whatever a tech company says about future products at face value. This is the same world where Tesla promised "zero intervention LA to NYC self driving" by the end of the year in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. The same world where we know for a fact that multiple GenAI demos by multiple companies were just completely faked. It's weird. In the late 2010s it seems like people were wising up to the idea that you can't implicitly trust big tech companies, even if they have nap pods in the office and have their first day employees wear funny hats. Then ChatGPT lands and everyone is back to fully trusting these companies when they say they are mere months from turning the world upside down with their AI, which they say every month for the last 12-24 months.

cle 2y ago
I'm not sure anyone is asking you to take it at face value or implicitly trust them? There's a 92-page paper with details: https://ai.meta.com/research/publications/the-llama-3-herd-of-models/ https://ai.meta.com/research/publications/the-llama-3-herd-o...
hnfong 2y ago
> In the late 2010s it seems like people were wising up to the idea that you can't implicitly trust big tech companies In the 2000s we only had Microsoft, and none of us were confused as to whether to trust Bill Gates or not...
mikae1 2y ago
Nobody tells it like Zitron: https://www.wheresyoured.at/pop-culture/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/pop-culture/ > What makes this interview – and really, this paper — so remarkable is how thoroughly and aggressively it attacks every bit of marketing collateral the AI movement has. Acemoglu specifically questions the belief that AI models will simply get more powerful as we throw more data and GPU capacity at them, and specifically ask a question: what does it mean to "double AI's capabilities"? How does that actually make something like, say, a customer service rep better? And this is a specific problem with the AI fantasists' spiel. They heavily rely on the idea that not only will these large language models (LLMs) get more powerful, but that getting more powerful will somehow grant it the power to do...something. As Acemoglu says, "what does it mean to double AI's capabilities?"

ctoth 2y ago

Wouldn't the equivalent for Meta actually be something like: > Other companies sell widgets. We have a bunch of widget-making machines and so we released a whole bunch of free widgets. We noticed that the widgets got better the more we made and expect widgets to become even better in future. Anyway here's the free download. Given that Meta isn't actually selling their models? Your response might make sense if it were to something OpenAI or Anthropic said, but as is I can't say I follow the analogy.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago

If OpenAI was saying this you'd have a point but I wouldn't call Facebook a widget seller in this case when they're giving their widgets away for free.

camel_Snake 2y ago

Meta doesn't sell widgets in this scenario - they give them away for free. Their competition sells widgets, so Meta would be perfectly happy if the widget market totally collapsed.

mattnewton 2y ago

that would make sense if it was from Openai, but Meta doesn't actually sell these widgets? They release the widget machines for free in the hopes that other people will build a widget ecosystem around them to rival the closed widget ecosystem that threatens to lock them out of a potential "next platform" powered by widgets.

littlestymaar 2y ago

Except: Meta doesn't sell AI at all. Zuck is just doing this for two reasons: - flex - deal a blow to Altmann

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
HDThoreaun 2y ago
Meta uses ai in all the recommendation algorithms. They absolutely hope to turn their chat assistants into a product on WhatsApp too, and GenAI is crucial to creating the metaverse. This isn’t just a charity case.
- PodgieTar 2y ago
  There are literal ads for Meta Ai on television. The idea they’re not selling something is absurd.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  AI isn't a single thing: of course meta didn't buy thousands of GPUs for fun. But it has nothing to do with LLMs (and interestingly enough they aren't opening their recommendation tech).

X6S1x6Okd1st 2y ago

But Meta isn't selling it