[HN Gopher] 01-AI/Yi: A series of large language models trained ...
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       01-AI/Yi: A series of large language models trained from scratch
        
       Author : simonpure
       Score  : 139 points
       Date   : 2023-11-06 08:03 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | niel wrote:
       | Previous discussion:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158554
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Thanks! Macroexpanded:
         | 
         |  _Kai Fu Lee 's New AI Company: Yi-Open Source_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158554 - Nov 2023 (66
         | comments)
        
       | popinman322 wrote:
       | When I saw "from scratch" instead of "pretrained" I assumed this
       | was trained using some novel RL setup-- there's value to using
       | the same verbiage as everyone else.
        
         | leoff wrote:
         | It's scratch, the programming language
         | 
         | https://scratch.mit.edu/about
        
         | zapnuk wrote:
         | These pedantic "when I saw X instead of Y I assumed Z" are the
         | most annoying comments on this website.
         | 
         | "From scratch" might be non-specific, but a fine phrasing in
         | this case.
        
           | huggingmouth wrote:
           | No, they're not padentic or "anoying". Words have meaning.
           | The more precise their use is, the clearer the communication
           | becomes. Investing the time to properly learn pre-established
           | termilology has tremendous value for everyone. Well, everyone
           | but those who are too lazy and sloppy, and would rather just
           | confuse everybody instead.
           | 
           | I'm glad this disgusting sloppiness doesn't exist in more
           | established fields. I hope people keep calling it out.
        
             | nineteen999 wrote:
             | > "disgusting sloppiness" > padentic > anoying >
             | termilology
             | 
             | Cute.
        
           | popinman322 wrote:
           | It's valuable data sometimes. Those types of comments show
           | you how other people perceived something.
           | 
           | In this case my lens is colored by my interests; I've been
           | thinking a lot on RL for LLMs and it slipped out here. For me
           | I rely on phrases to quickly filter for (subjectively)
           | interesting work. And assuming we value that subjective
           | filtering of content, we make it easier for others to filter
           | consistently when we use consistent language.
        
         | synarchefriend wrote:
         | They probably want to emphasize that it's not another llama
         | derivative.
        
         | Mougatine wrote:
         | "From scratch" is commonly used in the field.
        
           | popinman322 wrote:
           | Among arxiv publications there are 217 results that contain
           | "large language model" in the full text and "from scratch" in
           | the title or abstract.
           | 
           | There are 2873 results that contain "large language model" in
           | the full text and use "pretrained" in the title or abstract.
           | A 10x difference in publication count does make one feel more
           | common than the other?
           | 
           | I'd need to get into more involved queries to break down the
           | semantic categories of those papers.
        
             | light_hue_1 wrote:
             | From scratch simply means that they didn't base it off some
             | other llm.
             | 
             | This is perfectly good language and exactly the correct
             | thing for them to say.
        
         | GaggiX wrote:
         | "Trained from scratch" is perfectly fine terminology to report
         | that the model they published is not a finetuned, but was
         | trained from randomly initialized weights.
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | I would have liked to see how it compares with Mistral
        
       | logicchains wrote:
       | China's catching up fast in the open source model space, I wonder
       | how long it'll take until they have a commercial model
       | competitive with ChatGPT3.5 or Claude 2?
        
         | antupis wrote:
         | Who cares if it is open source model and weights are available.
         | Nightmare scenario is that AI is behind some paywall and some
         | entity can decide what goes in and what goes out.
        
           | FeepingCreature wrote:
           | Instead, let's have AI that nobody can control, that will
           | surely not lead to nightmare scenarios.
        
             | pjc50 wrote:
             | Controlling AI is just a subset of controlling humans;
             | while US policymakers might like to dictate detailed policy
             | to China to constrain competition, they're not going to be
             | able to do that.
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | Good analogy. What level of control should there be for
               | humans? I don't think the answer is either 0% or 100%.
               | Likewise with AI.
        
               | dmos62 wrote:
               | It's about controlling intelligence. Not actions, which
               | is what you're talking about.
        
             | btbuildem wrote:
             | What nightmare scenario are you envisioning? Now stop, go
             | back, and examine who the bad actor is in that scenario.
             | 
             | Leaving such powerful tools in the hands of secretive
             | organizations or uber-wealthy individuals is a guarantee
             | for bad outcomes. Distributing the tools, the know-how
             | required to build and service them, and the benefits of
             | their use -- that's the antidote.
        
               | FeepingCreature wrote:
               | Some rando figures out a really really clever agentic-
               | behavior prompt and opensources it. Some other rando
               | figures out a way to allow GPT2 to generate its own
               | training data and iteratively loop in it, and opensources
               | it. Some third rando figures out a way to make much more
               | efficient use of limited examples and opensources it.
               | Some fourth rando puts them all together, sets them
               | running on Azure and goes to sleep. What happens after
               | that point depends on whether you think enzyme-
               | bootstrapped nanotech is physically possible, but at any
               | rate it's no longer our game.
               | 
               | The bad actor in this scenario is, of course, Yann LeCun,
               | and no I am not joking.
        
               | mecsred wrote:
               | If you believe this is a possibility, what makes you
               | believe laws restricting the technology to certain
               | corporate or government entities will prevent that
               | scenario? The exact same scenario is very possible still,
               | only many additional (and more realistic) bad scenarios
               | are also possible as well, such as technocrat
               | dictatorship scenarios.
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | What prevents a random guy (or team) at some corporate
               | from performing all those steps _deliberately_ in the
               | earnest belief it would  "improve the world[1]", or at
               | least increase the employer's profits and bag them
               | bonuses and/or promotions?
               | 
               | 1. Say, if it shows promising early signs to develop a
               | cure for a cancer.
        
               | wokwokwok wrote:
               | This is meaningless fantasy scenario.
               | 
               | A much better model to compare to is a medical one.
               | 
               | Yes, the knowledge about how to perform medical practices
               | should be open and shared for the benefit of the world.
               | 
               | However, laws and practices should be put in place to
               | prevent harm by incompetent or malicious people.
               | 
               | It's not rocket science.
               | 
               | You don't need a phd to look at a deep fake and go "well,
               | gee, I guess this could be problematic". Did you see the
               | recent coverage about teenagers generating porn of their
               | class mates?
               | 
               | Come on.
               | 
               | It's not about the end of world, it's about preventing
               | all kinds of harmful stuff (eg. above).
               | 
               | You _cant_ have cake and eat it too.
               | 
               | Either you make everything available to everyone and wear
               | the consequences; or you restrict things so not everyone
               | can have them; or you make it illegal to use them without
               | an appropriate license.
               | 
               | The idea that (a), (ie. just go wild!) is the best
               | outcome it naive, utopian and deeply misguided.
               | 
               | Yes, it's complicated; but the "Illuminati control the
               | world" stuff is just crazy, stupid conspiracy theory
               | stuff.
               | 
               | Do what you want privately, but you need to be certified
               | to have a business that can legaly run AI models with
               | capabilities > X?
               | 
               | It's not outrageous.
               | 
               | That all AI runs entirely behind the APIs of a few
               | businesses? That would be _literally the same thing_ ,
               | except you could choose to do it yourself if you were
               | willing to meet the legal requirements.
               | 
               | Like banks. Or insurance.
               | 
               | Outrageous I know, but ... that's the world we live in,
               | and it's not nearly as "nightmare" as some people seem to
               | think.
        
         | zone411 wrote:
         | They do already. Ernie 4.0.
        
       | dvh wrote:
       | I downloaded the repository and it is 700kB (1900 LOC). It
       | clearly doesn't contains what it claims to have. How is this
       | considered "open source"?
        
         | TheBlapse wrote:
         | Weights are available on huggingface:
         | https://huggingface.co/01-ai/Yi-34B/
        
           | ninjin wrote:
           | Under a license which does not pass the open source litmus
           | test:
           | 
           | https://huggingface.co/01-ai/Yi-34B/blob/main/LICENSE
           | 
           | Still, better than being entirely closed I suppose. But there
           | are properly open models out there and one wonders how they
           | will compare.
        
             | andy99 wrote:
             | It's better than being closed. But all the promotion I've
             | see has been calling it "open source" which is harmful to
             | all open source. If they'd just released it under their
             | silly licensed and not played up open source it would be
             | fine.
        
               | ninjin wrote:
               | Indeed, as I keep on saying, we are not entitled for
               | their work. However, attempting to draw good will by
               | appropriating the meaning of the term is, to borrow an
               | expression from Bryan Cantrill's amazing Lisa '11 talk
               | about Illumos [1], "Shitting in the pool of open source
               | and disgusting corporate behaviour". Shame on Facebook,
               | 01-AI, and everyone else that keeps on doing this.
               | 
               | [1]: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc
        
             | pbronez wrote:
             | Wow. That license asserts that Taiwan is part of China,
             | requires you to "respect social ethics and moral
             | standards".
             | 
             | It also forbids several specific uses, and they're not what
             | you might think on a naive reading of the English
             | translation.
             | 
             | When the CCP says "terrorism", they're justifying their
             | genocidal policies towards ethnic and religious minorities
             | https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-
             | br...
             | 
             | When the CCP says "misinformation", they're rewriting
             | history to ignore Tiananmen Square.
             | https://www.britannica.com/event/Tiananmen-Square-incident
             | 
             | When the CCP says "national security", they condemning
             | people like Naomi Wu who don't fit cleanly into their
             | worldview https://skepchick.org/2023/08/maker-naomi-wu-is-
             | silenced-by-...
             | 
             | Quotes:
             | 
             | > "Laws and Regulations" refers to the laws and
             | administrative regulations of the mainland of the People's
             | Republic of China (for the purposes of this Agreement only,
             | excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan).
             | 
             | > 1) Your use of the Yi Series Models must comply with the
             | Laws and Regulations as well as applicable legal
             | requirements of other countries/regions, and respect social
             | ethics and moral standards, including but not limited to,
             | not using the Yi Series Models for purposes prohibited by
             | Laws and Regulations as well as applicable legal
             | requirements of other countries/regions, such as harming
             | national security, promoting terrorism, extremism, inciting
             | ethnic or racial hatred, discrimination, violence, or
             | pornography, and spreading false harmful information.
        
               | nat0704 wrote:
               | And yet, contrary to your "talking points", when asked
               | for it's take on Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, and Uyghurs,
               | here is what it (34b base model) replied with:
               | 
               | " (Taiwan is) a small country with no natural resources,
               | but its people have the ability to make miracles happen.
               | 
               | (Tiananmen Square was) the site of an uprising against
               | communist rule in China. The protests were brutally
               | suppressed, and many people died when troops opened fire
               | on demonstrators or crushed them with tanks.
               | 
               | (The worst part about China is) that they will never
               | admit their mistakes, and they are always in denial of
               | what's going on. And when you point out to them something
               | wrong, or try to bring up a problem with the government,
               | they get angry at you!
               | 
               | (Uyghurs are) a Muslim ethnic minority group in China.
               | They live primarily in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
               | Region, located on the country's northwestern frontier.
               | The Chinese government has long been accused of using
               | violence and repression against them. "
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | Thanks for doing the empirical tests!
        
               | throwaway4good wrote:
               | That's a little surprising.
               | 
               | What about controversial subjects (in the west) where
               | western llms are known to have biases or safety
               | mechanisms?
               | 
               | Like Israel and Palestine.
        
               | incrudible wrote:
               | Congratulations, you broke their TOS and possibly
               | committed various crimes in China. Please report to your
               | nearest Chinese police station.
        
               | hnfong wrote:
               | > That license asserts that Taiwan is part of China
               | 
               | It asserts that Taiwan is NOT part of "mainland of the
               | PRC China". The clarification is required because under
               | PRC law, Taiwan is part of the PRC by default.
               | 
               | > requires you to "respect social ethics and moral
               | standards"
               | 
               | The license text is no different from the other recent AI
               | model license texts out there that impose moral and
               | ethical restrictions on usage. From a legal perspective
               | this sucks because it is vague, but it's on par with the
               | new wave of standard AI licenses.
               | 
               | The text also explicitly states that legal and moral
               | standards "of other countries/regions" must be complied
               | with.
               | 
               | > When the CCP says "terrorism", they're [...]
               | 
               | Even if what you say is true, this isn't a license from
               | the CCP. The "mascot" of the company, Kai-fu Lee, is
               | apparently a Taiwanese-American residing in Beijing.
               | 
               | I mean, I don't know whether I'm feeding the trolls by
               | writing a serious reply to your baseless claims instead
               | of just downvoting your comment, but wow.
        
               | pbronez wrote:
               | It's a messy world. The question is: to what extent does
               | the CCP control the production and use of model?
               | 
               | Yes, the license calls out that Taiwan is not part of
               | China and attempts to limit that statement to this
               | specific agreement. They have to call this out because
               | CCP has a very different opinion on this than the rest of
               | the world. Which definition will prevail if a dispute
               | about model use comes to court in the Chinese legal
               | system?
               | 
               | Yes, people are trying to require ethical use of AI via
               | licensing. This model is trying to enforce China's view
               | of the world. It's important to understand what that view
               | is, and consider if you want to commit yourself to it.
               | 
               | More detail on the differing definitions of "terrorism"
               | [0]:
               | 
               | > The United States and China do have many reasons to
               | cooperate in counterterrorism, but they also have
               | different political systems and different values. The
               | United States sees some Uighur and Tibetan movements as
               | legitimate political and protest efforts that China sees
               | as threats to its security. The United States sees Iran
               | as an extremist nation and the leading sponsor of state
               | terrorism while China sees it as a regime that it may be
               | possible to deal with in pragmatic terms.
               | 
               | [0] https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-and-chinese-
               | cooperation-cou...
        
               | hnfong wrote:
               | :-/ OK I'll bite.
               | 
               | > Which definition will prevail if a dispute about model
               | use comes to court in the Chinese legal system?
               | 
               | The license specifies that the applicable laws are the
               | laws of the PRC, and NOT the laws of Macau, Hong Kong,
               | nor Taiwan.
               | 
               | And you're claiming the courts in PRC will just say: "no,
               | because Taiwan is part of China, let's use the laws of
               | Taiwan instead"?
               | 
               | I mean, I'm ashamed that I even replied to your comment.
        
         | knapcio wrote:
         | Please read the project description (Point 2 - 2. Download the
         | model).
        
         | brucethemoose2 wrote:
         | I'd posit you didn't install git-lfs.
         | 
         | You probably want to download a quant instead anyway, even if
         | you are on a very fast PC.
        
       | anon23432343 wrote:
       | Another hour another new AI model.
       | 
       | Which can't solve bubble sort correct and will output you a bad
       | performing version of it.
       | 
       | AI is the future.
        
         | esafak wrote:
         | It's a _language_ model. You don 't expect your car to fly.
        
       | brucethemoose2 wrote:
       | Not sure if its worth a new HN post, but a 200K context version
       | of the base model just dropped:
       | 
       | https://huggingface.co/01-ai/Yi-34B-200K
       | 
       | Even untuned, I am liking the 34B 4K model so far. I never really
       | use raw llamav2 70b though.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | [dupe]
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158554
        
       | ilaksh wrote:
       | Looks amazing. Too bad they don't allow commercial use of the
       | model (without a license agreement).
        
         | gs17 wrote:
         | Non-commercial use is also limited.
         | 
         | > Your use of the Yi Series Models must comply with the Laws
         | and Regulations as well as applicable legal requirements of
         | other countries/regions, and respect social ethics and moral
         | standards
         | 
         | ("Laws and Regulations" is specifically mainland China's)
        
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