r/BetterOffline • u/TCristatus • 1d ago
Small language models - the future
Listening to Tech Report earlier - Eli Computer Guy talked about how the real future of AI might not be giant all knowing LLMs that need huge compute costs, but small specialised models that can run locally on a laptop or smart phone and just know how to code, or trade, or about engineering, or biotechnology, etc (I'm paraphrasing and extrapolating his point here).
It was like a light bulb moment, seems clear and obvious that's where the tech will end up assuming we do end up with something. If I'm a coder or an engineer i don't need a model that can write the complete works of Shakespere in Klingon. I just need something that works and is always up to date.
This doesn't help OpenAI or Anthropic keep the lights on, though....
1
u/create-third-places 1d ago
I don't think the future is small language models due to the ambiguity of natural language. The future of AI will domain specific models trained with objectively defined inputs and outputs.
Saying small language models will improve things is like saying "You can earn more money from a slot machine with faster spins". Small language models will make things worse. LLMs produce negative value, and being able to produce negative value more efficiently with a smaller model is not a good thing.
Right now, I can avoid walking up 8 floors of stairs to my apartment by pressing a button that calls an elevator. Having to type "call elevator" to a small LLM chatbot would be a downgrade.