CatB Revisited

For the last week or so, I’ve been meaning to write something about Open Source and AI. But every time I sat down to do so, it seemed that more open source news would hit. So, in the time-honored tradition of this newsletter’s storied history, I will, once again, race to keep up.

Given the pace of the news, I thought it might be useful to share a bunch of the links I’ve been reading:

First up is this post from Unusual Ventures arguing, as its title implies, that native AI infrastructure will be open. The shorthand for the post (which is worth the read) is this graphic:

Diving a bit deeper, there is this post arguing that AI is having its “Linux Moment.” I’m assuming that the author isn’t implying that open source AI will always be largely unusable and never gain mainstream adoption. Kidding!

Then, I came upon Together’s $20M dollar “seed” round. Set aside for the moment the sheer hilarity of a $20M “seed” round, and we can at least observe that serious money is flowing to the open source side of the AI equation.

Cap that announcement off with this very nice piece in the MIT Technology Review about how the open source AI boom is built purely on the generosity of Big Tech — a generosity that could, of course, disappear in a heartbeat.

Take all of that as a whole and suddenly, the cross-currents in open source seem a bit more….crossed. But, if that weren’t enough, there is now a report out this morning that OpenAI will be releasing an open source version of its model.

Now, I’ve always assumed, perhaps simplistically, that LLMs become commoditized over time. Not worthless. Not unimportant. Commoditized. Further, it always seemed more than logical to plan for an AI (short to mid-term) future where open source and proprietary infrastructure and models co-exist. However, with the sheer pace and ferocity of open source cross-currents, I’m now wondering if we’re not about to re-live all of the open source arguments we had back in the early 2000s.

Perhaps it’s time to dust off that old copy of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and give it a fresh read. It may just come in handy over the next 2-3 years.

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One bit of housekeeping: I’m off running Gluecon next week, where I’ll get to hang out with technical AI leaders from big companies like AWS, Google, and Microsoft, as well as startups like Prefect, Grit, Continual, and Scale. So, no newsletter sends for a couple of weeks, but I hope to come back with some fresh learnings to share.

As always, if you find what you’re reading here even the tiniest bit useful, please share it with a friend or co-worker.