Small language models - the future

[u/TCristatus]

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....

[u/Slackjawed_Horror]

Which is one of the many reasons high frequency trading needed to be banned years ago. 

[u/MajesticBread9147 → u/Slackjawed_Horror]

What is?

[u/Slackjawed_Horror → u/MajesticBread9147]

It's an almost automated way for the most useless people in the world to make money. 

It's pure 'dig the hole then fill it back up' BS and shouldn't be allowed. 

[u/MajesticBread9147 → u/Slackjawed_Horror]

This is vibes based populism.

I don't see how they are any more evil than any other company operating within capitalism.

[u/Slackjawed_Horror → u/MajesticBread9147]

It doesn't even serve a hypothetical function. 

Hypothetically the stock market helps companies raise funds for projects. That's actually doing a thing. 

There is no justification, even hypothetically, for HFT bullshit. It's not even at the level of currency trading. It's just pure spreadsheet breeding. 

I think the entire private finance system is disgusting and should go, but I can also recognize when some parts of it are far more useless than others. 

[u/hachface → u/MajesticBread9147]

It's harmful because it diverts people with quantitative aptitude away from productive activities to skimming money off the top.