5 ms·

I hate to say it but that's like a boomer saying they never felt the need to buy a computer, because they've never wished their pen and paper goes faster. Or a

by jart 2y ago

I hate to say it but that's like a boomer saying they never felt the need to buy a computer, because they've never wished their pen and paper goes faster. Or a UNIX greybeard saying they don't need a Mac since they don't think its GUI would make their terminal go any faster. If you've hit a point in your life where you're no longer keeping up with the latest technological developments like AI, then of course you don't need to upgrade. A Macbook M1 can't run half the stuff posted on Hugging Face these days. Even my 128gb Mac Studio isn't nearly enough.

rconti 2y ago
I think the difference is that AI is a very narrow niche/hobby at the moment. Of course if you're in that niche having more horsepower is critical. But your boomer/greybeard comparisons fall flat because they're generally about age or being set in your ways. I don't think "not being into AI image generation" is (currently) about being stuck in your ways. To me it's more like 3d printing as a niche/hobby.
- ach9l 2y ago
  on ai being a niche/hobby at the moment... feels like something a unix greybeard would say about guis in the late 70s...
  - jart 2y ago
    Or what a prokaryote would say about eukaryotes.
    - alluro2 2y ago
      Seems like we've reached the "AI bro" phase...
      - jart 2y ago
        Using the term "bro" assumes that all AI supporters are men. This erases the fact that many women and nonbinary people are also passionate about AI technology and are contributing to its development. By using "AI bro" as an insult, you are essentially saying that women and nonbinary people are not welcome in the AI community and that our contributions don't matter. https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/13zhpa7/the_misogyny_of_using_ai_bro_as_a_pejorative/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/13zhpa7/the_misogyn...
        bilbo0s 2y ago
        Huh? How old are you? "Bro" has been gender neutral for over a decade. Males and females under the age of 25 call each other "bro" all the time.
        wtallis 2y ago
        Is there an alternative term you would prefer people to use when referring to a pattern of behavior perceived as a combination of being too excited about AI and being unaware (perhaps willfully) that other people can be reasonably be much less interested in the hype? Because that argument could definitely benefit from being immune to deflections based on accusations of sexism.
        jart 2y ago
        When I see that someone is excited about something, I believe in encouraging them. If you're looking for a more polite word to disparage people who love and are optimistic about something new, then you're overlooking what that says about your character. Also AI isn't just another fad like NFTs and web3. This is it. This is the big one.
        wtallis 2y ago
        > Also AI isn't just another fad like NFTs and web3. This is it. This is the big one. That's thoroughly unconvincing. That kind of talk is exactly what so many people are tired of hearing. Especially if it's coming from technically-minded people who don't have any reason to be talking like PR drones.
  - alluro2 2y ago
    I get that you're probably joking, but - if I use Claude / ChatGPT o1 in my editor and browser, on an M1 Pro - what exactly am I missing by not running e.g. HF models locally? Am I still the greybeard without realising?
    - jart 2y ago
      It's like asking what you're missing by not using Linux if you're using Windows.
    - Eugr 2y ago
      Privacy? Lots of companies do not allow using public chatbots for anything proprietary.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Playing with them locally? Yes, of course it's a niche hobby. The people doing stuff with them that's not either playing with them or developing not just an "AI" product, but a specific sort of AI product, are just using ChatGPT or some other prepackaged thing that either doesn't run locally, or does, but is sized to fit on ordinary hardware. < 1% of all engagement with a category thing is niche/hobby, yes.
  - nonameiguess 2y ago
    It's something a regular person would say to a Unix greybeard, which in and of itself was always and still is a very niche hobby.
ach9l 2y ago
you could not say this better than this.
gniv 2y ago
> A Macbook M1 can't run half the stuff posted on Hugging Face these days. Example?
- jart 2y ago
  LLaMA 3.1 405B
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Given that models are only going to get larger, and the sheer amount of compute required, I think the endgame here is dedicated "inference boxes" that actual user-facing devices call into. There are already a couple of home appliances like these - NAS, home automation servers - which have some intersecting requirements (e.g. storage for NAS) - so maybe we just need to resurrect the "home server" category.
    - jart 2y ago
      I agree, and if you want to have the opportunity to build such a product, then you need a computer whose specs today are what a home server would have in four years. If you want to build the future you have to live in the future. I'm proud to make stuff most people can't even run yet, because I know they'll be able to soon. That buys me time to polish their future and work out all the bugs too.
  - chrsw 2y ago
    I thought LLaMA 3.1 405B was a relatively huge model. Is the size of this model really typical of half the models you find on Hugging Face these days?
mrweasel 2y ago
> If you've hit a point in your life where you're no longer keeping up with the latest technological developments like AI, then of course you don't need to upgrade. That's me, I don't give a shit about AI, video editing, modern gaming or Kubernetes. That newest and heaviest piece of software I care about is VSCode. So I think you're absolutely correct. Most things new since Docker and VSCode has not contributed massively to how I work and most of the things I do could be done just fine 8-10 years ago.
dsv3099i 2y ago
That’s interesting because I would’ve thought having strong local compute was the old way of thinking. I run huge jobs that consume very large amounts of compute. But the machines doing the work aren’t even in the same state I’m in. Then again maybe I’m even older as I’m basically on the terminal server / mainframe compute model. :)
nonameiguess 2y ago
So every user of a computer that doesn't create their own home-grown ML models is a boomer? This can't possibly be a generational thing. Just about everyone on the planet is at a place in their life where they don't make their own AIs.
- jart 2y ago
  Eventually as the tools for doing it become better they'll all want to or need to. By then, most computers will be capable of running those tools too. Which means when that happens, people will come up another way to push the limits of compute.
danielbln 2y ago
I work with AI models all day every day, keep up with everything, love frontier tech, I love and breathe LLMs. And I, like OP, haven't seen the need to upgrade from the M1 MBP because it runs the small 1-7B models just fine, and anything bigger I want on some GPU instance anyway, or I want a frontier model which wouldn't run on the newest and biggest MBP. So it's not just us Boomers hating on new stuff, the M series MacBooks are just really good.
- jart 2y ago
  I fully support using Macbooks as a thin client into a better computer. So long as it's your computer.

by jart 2y ago

rconti 2y ago

I think the difference is that AI is a very narrow niche/hobby at the moment. Of course if you're in that niche having more horsepower is critical. But your boomer/greybeard comparisons fall flat because they're generally about age or being set in your ways. I don't think "not being into AI image generation" is (currently) about being stuck in your ways. To me it's more like 3d printing as a niche/hobby.

ach9l 2y ago
on ai being a niche/hobby at the moment... feels like something a unix greybeard would say about guis in the late 70s...
- jart 2y ago
  Or what a prokaryote would say about eukaryotes.
  - alluro2 2y ago
    Seems like we've reached the "AI bro" phase...
    - jart 2y ago
      Using the term "bro" assumes that all AI supporters are men. This erases the fact that many women and nonbinary people are also passionate about AI technology and are contributing to its development. By using "AI bro" as an insult, you are essentially saying that women and nonbinary people are not welcome in the AI community and that our contributions don't matter. https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/13zhpa7/the_misogyny_of_using_ai_bro_as_a_pejorative/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/13zhpa7/the_misogyn...
      - bilbo0s 2y ago
        Huh? How old are you? "Bro" has been gender neutral for over a decade. Males and females under the age of 25 call each other "bro" all the time.
      - wtallis 2y ago
        Is there an alternative term you would prefer people to use when referring to a pattern of behavior perceived as a combination of being too excited about AI and being unaware (perhaps willfully) that other people can be reasonably be much less interested in the hype? Because that argument could definitely benefit from being immune to deflections based on accusations of sexism.
        jart 2y ago
        When I see that someone is excited about something, I believe in encouraging them. If you're looking for a more polite word to disparage people who love and are optimistic about something new, then you're overlooking what that says about your character. Also AI isn't just another fad like NFTs and web3. This is it. This is the big one.
        wtallis 2y ago
        > Also AI isn't just another fad like NFTs and web3. This is it. This is the big one. That's thoroughly unconvincing. That kind of talk is exactly what so many people are tired of hearing. Especially if it's coming from technically-minded people who don't have any reason to be talking like PR drones.
- alluro2 2y ago
  I get that you're probably joking, but - if I use Claude / ChatGPT o1 in my editor and browser, on an M1 Pro - what exactly am I missing by not running e.g. HF models locally? Am I still the greybeard without realising?
  - jart 2y ago
    It's like asking what you're missing by not using Linux if you're using Windows.
  - Eugr 2y ago
    Privacy? Lots of companies do not allow using public chatbots for anything proprietary.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Playing with them locally? Yes, of course it's a niche hobby. The people doing stuff with them that's not either playing with them or developing not just an "AI" product, but a specific sort of AI product, are just using ChatGPT or some other prepackaged thing that either doesn't run locally, or does, but is sized to fit on ordinary hardware. < 1% of all engagement with a category thing is niche/hobby, yes.
- nonameiguess 2y ago
  It's something a regular person would say to a Unix greybeard, which in and of itself was always and still is a very niche hobby.

ach9l 2y ago

you could not say this better than this.

gniv 2y ago

> A Macbook M1 can't run half the stuff posted on Hugging Face these days. Example?

jart 2y ago
LLaMA 3.1 405B
- int_19h 2y ago
  Given that models are only going to get larger, and the sheer amount of compute required, I think the endgame here is dedicated "inference boxes" that actual user-facing devices call into. There are already a couple of home appliances like these - NAS, home automation servers - which have some intersecting requirements (e.g. storage for NAS) - so maybe we just need to resurrect the "home server" category.
  - jart 2y ago
    I agree, and if you want to have the opportunity to build such a product, then you need a computer whose specs today are what a home server would have in four years. If you want to build the future you have to live in the future. I'm proud to make stuff most people can't even run yet, because I know they'll be able to soon. That buys me time to polish their future and work out all the bugs too.
- chrsw 2y ago
  I thought LLaMA 3.1 405B was a relatively huge model. Is the size of this model really typical of half the models you find on Hugging Face these days?

mrweasel 2y ago

> If you've hit a point in your life where you're no longer keeping up with the latest technological developments like AI, then of course you don't need to upgrade. That's me, I don't give a shit about AI, video editing, modern gaming or Kubernetes. That newest and heaviest piece of software I care about is VSCode. So I think you're absolutely correct. Most things new since Docker and VSCode has not contributed massively to how I work and most of the things I do could be done just fine 8-10 years ago.

dsv3099i 2y ago

That’s interesting because I would’ve thought having strong local compute was the old way of thinking. I run huge jobs that consume very large amounts of compute. But the machines doing the work aren’t even in the same state I’m in. Then again maybe I’m even older as I’m basically on the terminal server / mainframe compute model. :)

nonameiguess 2y ago

So every user of a computer that doesn't create their own home-grown ML models is a boomer? This can't possibly be a generational thing. Just about everyone on the planet is at a place in their life where they don't make their own AIs.

jart 2y ago
Eventually as the tools for doing it become better they'll all want to or need to. By then, most computers will be capable of running those tools too. Which means when that happens, people will come up another way to push the limits of compute.

danielbln 2y ago

I work with AI models all day every day, keep up with everything, love frontier tech, I love and breathe LLMs. And I, like OP, haven't seen the need to upgrade from the M1 MBP because it runs the small 1-7B models just fine, and anything bigger I want on some GPU instance anyway, or I want a frontier model which wouldn't run on the newest and biggest MBP. So it's not just us Boomers hating on new stuff, the M series MacBooks are just really good.

jart 2y ago
I fully support using Macbooks as a thin client into a better computer. So long as it's your computer.