Open Weights AI Models Stay Free and Unrestricted Unlike Physical Goods
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This fellow is deliberately conflating two unrelated things, physical goods and software. They are not the same. At the same time he is demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI and software work. The model is free forever. It cannot be taken away or restricted. The value that a company gets from an open weights models is that they already trained it on their data and then precisely because it was trained on their data it remains continually useful to them because they now have a model that is tuned to their needs that literally cannot be taken away from them because it is theirs and runs in their infrastructure. The company then moves up the abstraction chain to build software around that model that is valuable to their business, solving more important problems. And also, models are not singletons. It's not either or. Like you have an open weights models and have to "switch" to a closed weights models. People use powerful closed models to orchestrate fine tuned smaller models all the time. I did it just ad I was writing this article from my phone on a software project I am working on. Also if the Chinese decided they would "take away" future versions of the model, like Alibaba already tried with Qwen, people just ignore that newer model and don't run it because it immediately lsoed the benefit of running on their own hardware, being unrestricted, being easily finetunable, having their IP protected, etc. The cheaper models will not and cannot put American labs out of business. Closed source and open source have always existed side by side and always will. Foolishness and ignorance is running rampant and people with zero understanding conflate their historical understanding of how the manufacturing of material goods went in the last forty years with how the ecosystem of open source and now open weights software functions. Open source underpins the foundation of American civilization. This fellow published his article on a platform running on open source web software, whether it is a blog or a professional magazine or newspaper, his phone likely runs it, as does the router in his house that connected him to the internet, as are the cloud servers that run the various services that host the words you are reading this on right now. The hawks are swarming. They are legion. Unfortunately they need to educate themselves much much better or they need to sit down at the children's table and let the grown ups handle this for them.
For those gorging on free or cheaper Chinese AI models, be careful. Don’t you understand that Chinese companies will raise their prices or restrict their models? Don’t you understand that it will be very complicated and expensive to replace your Chinese AI model when this happens? Don’t you think this is by design? Don’t you understand Beijing did took similar steps with solar panels, telecom and equipment, and critical minerals? Great op-ed by @augama
This fellow is deliberately conflating two unrelated things, physical goods and software. They are not the same. At the same time he is demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI and software work. The model is free forever. It cannot be taken away or restricted. The value that a company gets from an open weights models is that they already trained it on their data and then precisely because it was trained on their data it remains continually useful to them because they now have a model that is tuned to their needs that literally cannot be taken away from them because it is theirs and runs in their infrastructure. The company then moves up the abstraction chain to build software around that model that is valuable to their business, solving more important problems. And also, models are not singletons. It's not either or. Like you have an open weights models and have to "switch" to a closed weights models. People use powerful closed models to orchestrate fine tuned smaller models all the time. I did it just ad I was writing this article from my phone on a software project I am working on. Also if the Chinese decided they would "take away" future versions of the model, like Alibaba already tried with Qwen, people just ignore that newer model and don't run it because it immediately lsoed the benefit of running on their own hardware, being unrestricted, being easily finetunable, having their IP protected, etc. The cheaper models will not and cannot put American labs out of business. Closed source and open source have always existed side by side and always will. Foolishness and ignorance is running rampant and people with zero understanding conflate their historical understanding of how the manufacturing of material goods went in the last forty years with how the ecosystem of open source and now open weights software functions. Open source underpins the foundation of American civilization. This fellow published his article on a platform running on open source web software, whether it is a blog or a professional magazine or newspaper, his phone likely runs it, as does the router in his house that connected him to the internet, as are the cloud servers that run the various services that host the words you are reading this on right now. The hawks are swarming. They are legion. Unfortunately they need to educate themselves much much better. Our big labs are the fastest growing businesses of all time. They do not need protection. And the software and AI industry does not want or need the protectionists help. We understand how to compete and build value just fine. Stay in your own lane and stay out of the economy of the future.
For those gorging on free or cheaper Chinese AI models, be careful. Don’t you understand that Chinese companies will raise their prices or restrict their models? Don’t you understand that it will be very complicated and expensive to replace your Chinese AI model when this happens? Don’t you think this is by design? Don’t you understand Beijing did took similar steps with solar panels, telecom and equipment, and critical minerals? Great op-ed by @augama
This fellow is deliberately conflating two unrelated things, physical goods and software. They are not the same. At the same time he is demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI and software work. The model is free forever. It cannot be taken away or restricted. The value that a company gets from an open weights models is that they already trained it on their data and then precisely because it was trained on their data it remains continually useful to them because they now have a model that is tuned to their needs that literally cannot be taken away from them because it is theirs and runs in their infrastructure. The company then moves up the abstraction chain to build software around that model that is valuable to their business, solving more important problems. And also, models are not singletons. It's not either or. Like you have an open weights models and have to "switch" to a closed weights models. People use powerful closed models to orchestrate fine tuned smaller models all the time. I did it just ad I was writing this article from my phone on a software project I am working on. Also if the Chinese decided they would "take away" future versions of the model, like Alibaba already tried with Qwen, people just ignore that newer model and don't run it because it immediately lsoed the benefit of running on their own hardware, being unrestricted, being easily finetunable, having their IP protected, etc. The cheaper models will not and cannot put American labs out of business. Closed source and open source have always existed side by side and always will. Foolishness and ignorance is running rampant and people with zero understanding conflate their historical understanding of how the manufacturing of material goods went in the last forty years with how the ecosystem of open source and now open weights software functions. Open source underpins the foundation of American civilization. This fellow published his article on a platform running on open source web software, whether it is a blog or a professional magazine or newspaper, his phone likely runs it, as does the router in his house that connected him to the internet, as are the cloud servers that run the various services that host the words you are reading this on right now. The hawks are swarming. They are legion. Unfortunately they need to educate themselves much much better. Our big labs are the fastest growing businesses of all time. They do not need protection. And the software and AI industry does not want or need the protectionists help. We understand how to compete and build value just fine. We do need or want your help.
For those gorging on free or cheaper Chinese AI models, be careful. Don’t you understand that Chinese companies will raise their prices or restrict their models? Don’t you understand that it will be very complicated and expensive to replace your Chinese AI model when this happens? Don’t you think this is by design? Don’t you understand Beijing did took similar steps with solar panels, telecom and equipment, and critical minerals? Great op-ed by @augama