>Open local models are literally the past, but the very recent past. I therefore agree -- as long as they remain only on the order of a year older than the cutting edge, their future looks extremely bright.
I think the qualitative difference between Llama 2 and any previous open LLM is sufficient to the point that we can call this a new epoch. It took OpenAI spending millions on free compute to show the world what these things are capable of. And because it's something you can really only believe when you see it, that's what set things off.
But the cat's out of the bag now, and it's never going back. I think OpenAI would do well to return to their roots of pure research rather than bothering with the product side of things. Come up with the latest and greatest new models, then chuck 'em over the fence for Microsoft to monetize.
>I just hope for-profit enterprises continue wanting to push that frontier as hard as they have been. (Wait, actually also if they stop doing that it might be for the best ...)
My bet is that Meta is pivoting hard right now. Llama is probably their most successful project/product/whatever since Instagram. They have the talent, the money, and (crucially right now) the hardware to do it. And this plays directly into Zuck's desire for a platform. It seems pretty obvious their play is to build an ecosystem around these things and start gradually introducing licensing fees (and/or hosted models) for big commercial users.