5 ms·

It feels more and more like OpenAI/Anthoropic aren't the future but Qwen, Kimi, or Deepseek are. You can run them locally, but that isn't really the point, it i

It feels more and more like OpenAI/Anthoropic aren't the future but Qwen, Kimi, or Deepseek are. You can run them locally, but that isn't really the point, it is about democratization of service providers. You can run any of them on a dozen providers with different trade-offs/offerings OR locally. They won't ever be SOTA due to money, but "last year's SOTA" when it costs 1/4 or less, may be good enough. More quantity, more flexibility, at lower edge quality. It can make sense. A 7% dumber agent TEAM Vs. a single objectively superior super-agent. That's the most exciting thing going on in that space. New workflows opening up not due to intelligence improvements but cost improvements for "good enough" intelligence.

echelon 6mo ago
Open Source isn't even within 50% of what the SOTA models are. Benchmarks are toys, real world use is vastly different, and that's where they seriously lag. Why should anyone waste time on poorer results? I'd rather pay my $200/mo because my time matters. I'm not a poor college student anymore, and I need more return on my time. I'm not shitting on open weights here - I want open source to win. I just don't see how that's possible. It's like Photoshop vs. Gimp. Not only is the Gimp UX awful, but it didn't even offer (maybe still doesn't?) full bit depth support. For a hacker with free time, that's fine. But if my primary job function is to transform graphics in exchange for money, I'm paying for the better tool. Gimp is entirely a no-go in a professional setting. Or it's like Google Docs / Microsoft Office vs. LibreOffice. LibreOffice is still pretty trash compared to the big tools. It's not just that Google and Microsoft have more money, but their products are involved in larger scale feedback loops that refine the product much more quickly. But with weights it's even worse than bad UX. These open weights models just aren't as smart. They're not getting RLHF'd on real world data. The developers of these open weights models can game benchmarks, but the actual intelligence for real world problems is lacking. And that's unfortunately the part that actually matters. Again, to be clear: I hate this. I want open. I just don't see how it will ever be able to catch up to full-featured products.
- MostlyStable 6mo ago
  I think that there will come a point when open source models are "good enough" for many tasks (they probably already are for some tasks; or at least, some small number of people seem happy with them), but, as you suggest, it will likely always (for the forseeable future at least) be the case that closed SOTA models are significantly ahead of open models, and any task which can still benefit from a smarter model (which will probably always remain some large subset of tasks) will be better done on a closed model. The trick is going to be recognizing tasks which have some ceiling on what they need and which will therefore eventually be doable by open models, and those which can always be done better if you add a bit more intelligence.
- Someone1234 6mo ago
  > Open Source isn't even within 50% of what the SOTA models are. When was the last time you used any of them? Because, a lot of people are actively using them for 9-5 work today, I count myself in that group. That opinion feels outdated, like it was formed a year ago+ and held onto. Or based on highly quantized versions and or small non-Thinking models. Do you really think Qwen3.6 for a specific example is "50%" as good as Opus4.7? Opus4.7 is clearly and objectively better, no debate on that, but the gap isn't anywhere near that wide. I'd call "20%" hyperbole, the true difference is difficult to exactly measure but sub-10% for their top-tier Thinking models is likely.
  - vlovich123 6mo ago
    Qwen3.6 at which model size and quantization? I already think Opus 4.6 is usable but still dumb as bricks. A 20% cut off that feels like it would still be unusable. And that's not even getting to the annoyance of setting everything up to run locally & getting HW that can run it locally which basically looks like a Macbook M4 these days as the x86 side is ridiculously pricey to get decent performance out of models.
    - Someone1234 6mo ago
      At their highest model size and quant. We are discussing price and quality at the top, not what you can run on the lower end. So the starting point is Opus 4.7 pricing and we're contrasting alternatives near the top end (offered across multiple providers). Also I said 20% was hyperbole, meaning far too high.
2ndorderthought 6mo ago
You can run local models on junker laptops for specific tasks that are about as good as last years SOTA. If the manufactured compute hardware shortage wasn't happening a lot more people would be running two months ago SOTA locally right now. Funny thoughts...

echelon 6mo ago

Open Source isn't even within 50% of what the SOTA models are. Benchmarks are toys, real world use is vastly different, and that's where they seriously lag. Why should anyone waste time on poorer results? I'd rather pay my $200/mo because my time matters. I'm not a poor college student anymore, and I need more return on my time. I'm not shitting on open weights here - I want open source to win. I just don't see how that's possible. It's like Photoshop vs. Gimp. Not only is the Gimp UX awful, but it didn't even offer (maybe still doesn't?) full bit depth support. For a hacker with free time, that's fine. But if my primary job function is to transform graphics in exchange for money, I'm paying for the better tool. Gimp is entirely a no-go in a professional setting. Or it's like Google Docs / Microsoft Office vs. LibreOffice. LibreOffice is still pretty trash compared to the big tools. It's not just that Google and Microsoft have more money, but their products are involved in larger scale feedback loops that refine the product much more quickly. But with weights it's even worse than bad UX. These open weights models just aren't as smart. They're not getting RLHF'd on real world data. The developers of these open weights models can game benchmarks, but the actual intelligence for real world problems is lacking. And that's unfortunately the part that actually matters. Again, to be clear: I hate this. I want open. I just don't see how it will ever be able to catch up to full-featured products.

MostlyStable 6mo ago
I think that there will come a point when open source models are "good enough" for many tasks (they probably already are for some tasks; or at least, some small number of people seem happy with them), but, as you suggest, it will likely always (for the forseeable future at least) be the case that closed SOTA models are significantly ahead of open models, and any task which can still benefit from a smarter model (which will probably always remain some large subset of tasks) will be better done on a closed model. The trick is going to be recognizing tasks which have some ceiling on what they need and which will therefore eventually be doable by open models, and those which can always be done better if you add a bit more intelligence.
Someone1234 6mo ago
> Open Source isn't even within 50% of what the SOTA models are. When was the last time you used any of them? Because, a lot of people are actively using them for 9-5 work today, I count myself in that group. That opinion feels outdated, like it was formed a year ago+ and held onto. Or based on highly quantized versions and or small non-Thinking models. Do you really think Qwen3.6 for a specific example is "50%" as good as Opus4.7? Opus4.7 is clearly and objectively better, no debate on that, but the gap isn't anywhere near that wide. I'd call "20%" hyperbole, the true difference is difficult to exactly measure but sub-10% for their top-tier Thinking models is likely.
- vlovich123 6mo ago
  Qwen3.6 at which model size and quantization? I already think Opus 4.6 is usable but still dumb as bricks. A 20% cut off that feels like it would still be unusable. And that's not even getting to the annoyance of setting everything up to run locally & getting HW that can run it locally which basically looks like a Macbook M4 these days as the x86 side is ridiculously pricey to get decent performance out of models.
  - Someone1234 6mo ago
    At their highest model size and quant. We are discussing price and quality at the top, not what you can run on the lower end. So the starting point is Opus 4.7 pricing and we're contrasting alternatives near the top end (offered across multiple providers). Also I said 20% was hyperbole, meaning far too high.

2ndorderthought 6mo ago

You can run local models on junker laptops for specific tasks that are about as good as last years SOTA. If the manufactured compute hardware shortage wasn't happening a lot more people would be running two months ago SOTA locally right now. Funny thoughts...