4 ms·
If you think of LLMs as programs. The weights and inference code are very much a binary. While the training code and data are the true source. Since if you wan
by kingstnap 1mo ago
If you think of LLMs as programs. The weights and inference code are very much a binary.
While the training code and data are the true source. Since if you want to robustly modify the LLM that's actually what you need.
But since "compilation" (training) is extremely compute intensive this isn't something accessible to anyone without an entire datacenter.
Anyway semantics aside having the binary is still infinitely better than dealing with an api as far as privacy and control go.
- kzrdude 1mo agoI agree. But models in difference to compiled binaries, are useful as just weights and can be further refined and post-trained, at least. I don't know LLM theory well enough to say if there's some secret sauce they can hold back that makes training ineffective. Less effective I'm sure, we don't have access to their smart training schemes, but post-training should always be possible IIUC.
- MeetingsBrowser 1mo agoAt the risk of taking the analogy too far, I would treat refining like modifying a dynamic library. You can technically modify behavior, but only in a very coarse way. post-training is like writing a wrapper around the binary. It is closer to building on top of than truly modifying, in that you can tailor things to your needs slightly but cannot make fundamental changes to the underlying thing.
- adastra22 1mo agoAre you assuming single-layer LORA fine-tuning on top? Because with open-weights you can do full back-propagation training to mold the model into whatever shape you want. For a stretched analogy, I think it is more like LEGO sets. Someone hands you a 10,000 piece masterpiece, and a box of unused LEGO parts. Hackers on HN object that the LEGO part manufacturing process is not included, you can't make your own parts, etc. But it's LEGO. You can pull apart the model, see how it is constructed, add your own refinements and features, or even redo it from the ground up. In a practical sense having knowledge about the factory making the parts doesn't really matter here.
- adastra22 1mo agoThat’s not how it works though. Two training runs on the same data don’t produce the same weights. And if you want to modify the AI, you do so by fine tuning the weights not rerunning training. In every respect that matters, the weights are both the binary and the source code together.
- stavros 1mo agoIf I want to remove censorship from your open-weights model, how do I do that?
- Tryk 1mo agoThe process is called Ablation, there are many ablated models available to download https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablation_(artificial_intelligence) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablation_(artificial_intellige...
- overfeed 1mo ago> ...how do I do that? Put in the work. This is akin to asking how to remove Rust from a Rust project; just because something is legally available to you doesn't mean you wont need to apply dome elbow grease, depending how deep the changes you want are, ablation, fine-tuning, or distillation are tools you can use to remove "censorship"
- raincole 1mo agoBy this standard there is no closed source software on PC. You can always modify the binary directly or hook your functions in.
- riversflow 1mo agoWouldn’t any software that is a client and relies on a proprietary server to function (like most modern AAA games) be “closed source” under this definition? Not that I agree with this definition of open source btw, just saying that there is precedent.
- 1mo ago
- Vetch 1mo agoThe weights + the architecture are already 100% of the code, the transformer is just a mathematical expression + helper programs whose sources are provided. The transformer itself is not even a stateful program, so a it is no more a binary than Piet or Tromp's BLC are. It's merely incomprehensible. Training isn't compilation either, since training a model is closer to program induction and the data are samples defining the solution space.