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> The hacker ethos is about openness, individuality, decentralization (among others). Yes, the greatest things on the internet have been decentralized - Git, L
by visarga 2y ago
> The hacker ethos is about openness, individuality, decentralization (among others).
Yes, the greatest things on the internet have been decentralized - Git, Linux, Wikipedia, open scientific publications, even some forums. We used to passively consume content and internet allowed interaction. We don't want to return to the old days. AI falls into the decentralized camp, the primary beneficiaries are not the providers but the users. We get help of things we need, OpenAI gets a few cents per million tokens, they don't even break even.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago> AI falls into the decentralized camp I'm sorry, the worlds knowledge now largely accessible by a laymen via LLMs controlled by at most, 5 companies is decentralized? If that statement is true then the world decentralized truly is entirely devoid of meaning at this point.
- visarga 2y agoLet's classify technology: 1. Decentralized technologies you can operate privately, freely, and adapt to your needs: computers, old internet, Linux, git, FireFox, local Wikipedia dump, old standalone games. 2. Centralized technologies that invade privacy, lead to loss of control and manipulation: web search, social networks, mobile phones, Chrome, recent internet, networked games. LLMs fall into the decentralized camp. You can download a LLM, run it locally, fine-tune it. It is interactive, the most interactive decentralized tech since standalone games. If you object that LLMs are mostly centralized today (upfront cost of pre-training and OpenAI popularity), I say they are still not monopolies, there are many more LLM providers than search engines and social networks, and the next round of phones and laptops will be capable of local gen-AI. The experience will be seamless, probably easier to adapt than touchscreens were in 2007.