4 ms·

In the early 2000s Wikipedia used to fill that role. Now it's like you have an encyclopedia that you can talk to. What I'm slightly worried about is that event

In the early 2000s Wikipedia used to fill that role. Now it's like you have an encyclopedia that you can talk to. What I'm slightly worried about is that eventually they are going to want to monetize LLMs more and more, and it's not going to be good, because they have the ability to steer the conversation towards trying to get you to buy stuff.

idiotsecant 9mo ago
It's also inevitable that better and better open source models will be distilled as frontier models advance.
- snek_case 9mo ago
  I agree. I think the local models you can run on the "average computer" are not quite good enough yet, but I have hope that we will see much better small local models in the future.
deadbabe 9mo ago
Enshittification is always inevitable in a capitalist world, but not always easy to predict how it will happen.
- marsven_422 9mo ago
  [dead]
pmarreck 9mo ago
> they are going to want to monetize LLMs more and more Not only can you run reasonably intelligent models on recent relatively powerful PC's "for free", but advances are undoubtedly coming that will increase the efficient use of memory and CPU in these things- this is all still early-days Also, some of those models are "uncensored"
- OGEnthusiast 9mo ago
  How do you verify the models you download also aren't trying to get you to buy stuff?
  - awesome_dude 9mo ago
    Proudly bought to you by Slurm
  - tvink 9mo ago
    I guess you.. ask them a bunch of recommendations? I would imagine this would not be incredibly hard to test as a community
    - ben_w 9mo ago
      Before November 30, 2022 that would have worked, but I think it stopped being reliable sometime between the original ChatGPT and today. As per dead internet theory, how confident are we that the community which tells us which LLM is safe or unsafe is itself made of real people, and not mostly astroturfing by the owners of LLMs which are biased to promote things for money? Even DIY testing isn't necessarily enough, deceptive alignment has been shown to be possible as a proof-of-concept for research purposes, and one example of this is date-based: show "good" behaviour before some date, perform some other behaviour after that date.
- vjk800 9mo ago
  Can you? I imagine e.g. Google is using material not available to the public to train their models (unsencored Google books, etc.). Also, the chat bots, like Gemini, are not just pure LLMs anymore, but they also utilize other tools as part of their computation. I've asked Gemini computationally heavy questions and it successfully invokes Python scripts to answer them. I imagine it can also use other tools than Python, some of which might not even be publicly known. I'm not sure what the situation is currently, but I can easily see private data and private resources leading to much better AI tools, which can not be matched by open source solutions.
Klaster_1 9mo ago
One of the approaches to this that I haven't seen being talked about on HN at all is LLM as public infrastructure by the government. I think EU can pull this off. This also addresses overall alignment and compute-poverty issue. I wouldn't mind if my taxes paid for that instead of a ChatGPT subscription.
- attila-lendvai 9mo ago
  this assumes that "the government" is "us" and not "them"...
- Nevermark 9mo ago
  This is not a good idea at all. Government should not be in a position to directly and pervasively shape people’s understanding of the world. That would be the infinite regress opposite of a free (in a completely different sense) press. A non-profit providing an open data and training regime for an open WikiBrain would be nice. With standard pricing for scaled up use.
  - squidbeak 9mo ago
    > Government should not be in a position to directly and pervasively shape people’s understanding of the world. You disagree with national curricula, state broadcasters, publicly funded research and public information campaigns?
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - cloverich 9mo ago
      Many Americans these days absolutely do disagree with all of those things. Educated ones. Theres simply a short circuit belief based pathway in peoples brains that bypasses everything rational on arbitrary topics. Most of us used to see it as isolated to religion or niche political points, but increasingly everything os being swept into the "its political" camp.
    - 9mo ago
resonious 9mo ago
Right, this is what happened with search engines. And "SEO for LLMs" is already a thing.
attila-lendvai 9mo ago
or more generally than just ads: make you believe stuff that makes you act in ways that is detrimental to you, but benefitial to them (whoever sits in the center and can control and shape the LLM). i.e. the Nudge Unit on steroids... care must be taken to avoid that.
anon_anon12 9mo ago
I can envision this as being in the boots of Truman from Truman Show where some advertisement is thrown at your face randomly
michaelbrave 9mo ago
I sort of already had an experience where it did kinda. I was consulting with it potential fashion choices to upgrade my work uniform, to look professional but still creative, basically to look more like a creative director. It recommended brands, colors, styles etc. Then I was asking about eyeglass frames showed it three pictures, described my facial features and it was like "you have to buy this one now" more enthusiastic than expected. It wasn't ads or anything but there was a bit of salesyness in there.

idiotsecant 9mo ago

It's also inevitable that better and better open source models will be distilled as frontier models advance.

snek_case 9mo ago
I agree. I think the local models you can run on the "average computer" are not quite good enough yet, but I have hope that we will see much better small local models in the future.

deadbabe 9mo ago

Enshittification is always inevitable in a capitalist world, but not always easy to predict how it will happen.

marsven_422 9mo ago
[dead]

pmarreck 9mo ago

> they are going to want to monetize LLMs more and more Not only can you run reasonably intelligent models on recent relatively powerful PC's "for free", but advances are undoubtedly coming that will increase the efficient use of memory and CPU in these things- this is all still early-days Also, some of those models are "uncensored"

OGEnthusiast 9mo ago
How do you verify the models you download also aren't trying to get you to buy stuff?
- awesome_dude 9mo ago
  Proudly bought to you by Slurm
- tvink 9mo ago
  I guess you.. ask them a bunch of recommendations? I would imagine this would not be incredibly hard to test as a community
  - ben_w 9mo ago
    Before November 30, 2022 that would have worked, but I think it stopped being reliable sometime between the original ChatGPT and today. As per dead internet theory, how confident are we that the community which tells us which LLM is safe or unsafe is itself made of real people, and not mostly astroturfing by the owners of LLMs which are biased to promote things for money? Even DIY testing isn't necessarily enough, deceptive alignment has been shown to be possible as a proof-of-concept for research purposes, and one example of this is date-based: show "good" behaviour before some date, perform some other behaviour after that date.
vjk800 9mo ago
Can you? I imagine e.g. Google is using material not available to the public to train their models (unsencored Google books, etc.). Also, the chat bots, like Gemini, are not just pure LLMs anymore, but they also utilize other tools as part of their computation. I've asked Gemini computationally heavy questions and it successfully invokes Python scripts to answer them. I imagine it can also use other tools than Python, some of which might not even be publicly known. I'm not sure what the situation is currently, but I can easily see private data and private resources leading to much better AI tools, which can not be matched by open source solutions.

Klaster_1 9mo ago

One of the approaches to this that I haven't seen being talked about on HN at all is LLM as public infrastructure by the government. I think EU can pull this off. This also addresses overall alignment and compute-poverty issue. I wouldn't mind if my taxes paid for that instead of a ChatGPT subscription.

attila-lendvai 9mo ago
this assumes that "the government" is "us" and not "them"...
Nevermark 9mo ago
This is not a good idea at all. Government should not be in a position to directly and pervasively shape people’s understanding of the world. That would be the infinite regress opposite of a free (in a completely different sense) press. A non-profit providing an open data and training regime for an open WikiBrain would be nice. With standard pricing for scaled up use.
- squidbeak 9mo ago
  > Government should not be in a position to directly and pervasively shape people’s understanding of the world. You disagree with national curricula, state broadcasters, publicly funded research and public information campaigns?
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - cloverich 9mo ago
    Many Americans these days absolutely do disagree with all of those things. Educated ones. Theres simply a short circuit belief based pathway in peoples brains that bypasses everything rational on arbitrary topics. Most of us used to see it as isolated to religion or niche political points, but increasingly everything os being swept into the "its political" camp.
  - 9mo ago

resonious 9mo ago

Right, this is what happened with search engines. And "SEO for LLMs" is already a thing.

attila-lendvai 9mo ago

or more generally than just ads: make you believe stuff that makes you act in ways that is detrimental to you, but benefitial to them (whoever sits in the center and can control and shape the LLM). i.e. the Nudge Unit on steroids... care must be taken to avoid that.

anon_anon12 9mo ago

I can envision this as being in the boots of Truman from Truman Show where some advertisement is thrown at your face randomly

michaelbrave 9mo ago

I sort of already had an experience where it did kinda. I was consulting with it potential fashion choices to upgrade my work uniform, to look professional but still creative, basically to look more like a creative director. It recommended brands, colors, styles etc. Then I was asking about eyeglass frames showed it three pictures, described my facial features and it was like "you have to buy this one now" more enthusiastic than expected. It wasn't ads or anything but there was a bit of salesyness in there.