[cardine]

> Given both the competitive landscape and the safety implications of large-scale models like GPT-4, this report contains no further details about the architecture (including model size), hardware, training compute, dataset construction, training method, or similar.

"Open"

[cypress66]

What a joke. This is literary as closed as it gets. They don't even tell you how many parameters the model has.

People may criticize Google because they don't release the weights or an API, but at least they publish papers, which allows the field to progress.

[cardine]

In addition to very open publishing, Google recently released Flan-UL2 open source which is an order of magnitude more impressive than anything OpenAI has ever open sourced.

I agree, it is a bizarre world where the "organization that launched as a not for profit called OpenAI" is considerably less open than Google.

[coder543]

> Google recently released Flan-UL2 open source which is an order of magnitude more impressive than anything OpenAI has ever open sourced.

CLIP has been extremely influential and is still an impressive model.

Personally, I have found Whisper to be very impressive.

I didn't even see any news around the release of Flan-UL2, and I pay significantly more attention to machine learning than the average person. Searching for more info about Flan-UL2, it seems somewhat interesting, but I don't know if I find it "an order of magnitude more impressive" than CLIP or Whisper. Certainly, they are completely different types of models, so it is hard to compare them.

If Flan-UL2 is as good as one twitter account was hyping it up to be, then I'm surprised it hasn't been covered to the same extent as Meta's LLaMA. Flan-UL2 seems to have gotten a total of 3 upvotes on HN. But, there is no shortage of hype in the world of ML models, so I take that twitter account's report of Flan-UL2 with a (large) grain of salt. I'll definitely be looking around for more info on it.

[mirekrusin]

Maybe they're embarrassed to admit they recycled click farms to increase training data quality and that's it?

A bit like this fictional janitor guy who said "just put more computers to make it better" before papers on unexpected emergent comprehension when when scaled started appearing.

[ren_engineer]

at least they admit the competitive landscape is a factor rather than going 100% with "it's for safety reasons". I'm sure somebody will release an equivalent soon, the way open source has completely surpassed OpenAI when they try to keep things closed like DALLE vs Stable Diffusion shows that OpenAI really isn't that special, they just have a sweetheart deal with Microsoft

[dgs_sgd]

I wouldn't be surprised if this tech goes through some kind of export control regulation similar to what cryptography went through in the 90s. Remember the T-Shirt with the RSA source code that was classified as a munition?

[ren_engineer]

seems like controlling access to GPUs would be the more likely/easier solution for governments. Not many facilities that can produce them and easy to track the huge amounts needed for this scale of computing

Almost like trying to stop nuclear proliferation

[generalizations]

After the Llama and ggml projects that came to light in the last few weeks, it's more likely they'd have to control access to CPUs as well. Good luck with that.

[kurisufag]

>good luck with that

I don't think they need it.[0][1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processo...

[numpad0]

If I were “they” I’d try to control systems with >128GB RAM capacity and clustering aids e.g. 40GE and PCIe bridging cards. That should be semi doable.

[Sebb767]

Except that the main political competitor (from the US perspective) is the country producing most of them, so this might backfire quite quickly.

[Tossrock]

Wrong unless you consider China and Taiwan the same country, which is a pretty hot take anywhere except China.

[astrea]

I mean, most AI technologies are already considered ITAR for the sole sake of maintaining a competitive advantage. At least, that's what my last two employers have told me and I hope I didn't go through all of that training for nothing.

[0xDEF]

Unlike the anti-cryptography fearmongering of the 90s the concerns about AI is coming from the experts themselves.

[random_cynic]

What has happened to this site? Full of bs takes like this.

[nailer]

Actually open AI (free of pseudo-'safety' moderation too) https://open-assistant.io/

[schleck8]

What a weird way of phrasing this. I disagree that AI should be able to write a 20 page guide on how to commit a nail bomb attack on a specified group. How about you?

[eulers_secret]

It doesn't matter what any of us think. My local LLAMA install will readily return how to make tannerite-style explosives and more.

The cat was arguably never in the bag.

[narwally]

Hell, I can learn that just by chit-chating with my redneck neighbor.

[welshwelsh]

Of course, the AI should do whatever it is asked. It is the user's responsibility if they use it for something harmful, like with any form of computing.

Personally I don't really care about making nail bombs. But I do want the AI to help with things like: pirating or reproducing copyrighted material, obtaining an abortion or recreational drugs in places where it is illegal, producing sexually explicit content, writing fictional stories about nail bomb attacks, and providing viewpoints which are considered blasphemous or against the teachings of major world religions.

If there was a way to prevent AI from helping with things that are universally considered harmful (such as nail bomb attacks), without it being bound by arbitrary national laws, corporate policies, political correctness or religious morals, then MAYBE that would be worth considering. But I take what OpenAI is doing as proof that this is not possible, that allowing AI to be censored leads to a useless, lobotomized product that can't do anything interesting and restricts the average user, not just terrorists.

[jazzyjackson]

If my training set includes information on how to build bombs, hasnt the damage already been done?

You want a blacklist of topics the search engine shouldn't retrieve/generate? Whose in control of this filter, and isn't it a juicy source of banned info all on its own?

[RobotToaster]

You don't need AI for that anyway.

[nailer]

What an odd question. I’d consider nail bombs a matter of actual safety rather than pseudo safety. How about you?

[majani]

If an AI can write that guide, it means it was probably on the open web to begin with anyway

[kuprel]

What’s the best rumor on model size? That number can’t be easy to keep secret

[moffkalast]

Well it is open.

Your wallet that is.

[rvz]

Why is this downvoted?

Rather than getting engrossed in the hype, they're slowly closing everything about themselves, now in their research papers. At this point, they hardly care and it is nothing got to do with 'AI ethics' or 'saftey'.

This is yet another ClosedAI production all done by Microsoft. Might as well call it Microsoft® AI division.

Now you really need a open source GPT-4 competitor. Clearly this is another attempt to pump their valuation and unload to the public markets.

Good luck re-implementing this so-called 'Open' large multi-modal model.

[ryanwaggoner]

I downvoted because it's a trivial and unsubstantial critique. Who cares about their name?

[cardine]

OpenAI didn't pick that name arbitrarily.

Here was their manifesto when they first started: https://openai.com/blog/introducing-openai

> OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.

> We believe AI should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible. The outcome of this venture is uncertain and the work is difficult, but we believe the goal and the structure are right. We hope this is what matters most to the best in the field.

OpenAI as it exists right now contradicts basically every single thing they said they would be. I think that is a nontrivial issue!

[ryanwaggoner]

I disagree that they contradict every single thing they said they would be, and I fundamentally just don't care that they've shifted their positions. Are they a force for good or evil now? I think that remains to be seen, but I don't care about their name.

[cardine]

You might not care but that doesn't make calling them out for reneging on their original mission a trivial and unsubstantial critique.

[ryanwaggoner]

Posting the word "open" is pretty unsubstantial...especially when there have been literally thousands of comments about this over the last few months.

[return_to_monke]

they were a non-profit at some point, iirc.

[astrea]

This is like the "free" vs free debate that has been raging for decades and prompted the famous quote "“free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”".

[sebzim4500]

Yeah but this is the least open action we have seen yet from an organisation with 'Open' in the name.

Keeping the weights is one thing, but the model parameters? New low.

[astrea]

You expect too much out of the 1. The incredibly psychopathic tech oligarchs and 2. Microsoft, who has an equally questionable moral/ethical standing that seems to worsen by the day.

[colordrops]

OpenAI is neither free as in speech nor as in beer.