Think Forward.

The future of AI is Small and then Smaller.

Tariq Daouda, 6 mon.
2 min read.

The future of AI is Small and then Smaller.

Tariq Daouda, 6 mon.
We need smaller models, but don't expect big tech to develop them. Current state-of the-art architectures are very inefficient, the cost of training them is getting out of hand, more and more unaffordable for most people and institutions. This effectively is creating a 3 tiers society in AI: 1- Those who can afford model development and training (Big tech mostly). And make *foundation models* for everybody else 2- Those who can only afford the fine tuning of the *foundation models* 3- Those who can only use the fine tuned models through APIs. This is if far from an ideal situation for innovation and development because it effectively creates one producer tier (1) and 2 consumer tiers (2 and 3). It concentrates most of the research and development into tier 1, leaves a little for tier 2 and almost completely eliminates tier 3 from R&D in AI. Tier 3 is most of the countries and most of the people. This also explains why most of the AI startups we see all over the place are at best tier 2, this means that their *Intellectual Property* is low. The barrier to entry for competition is very low, as someone else can easily replicate their product. The situation for tier 3 AI startups is even worst. This is all due to two things: 1- It took almost 20 years for governments and people to realize that AI is coming. In fact they only did it after the fact. The prices for computer hardware (GPUs) where already through the roof and real talent already very rare. Most people still think they need *Data scientists*, in fact they need: AI Researchers, DevOps Engineers, Software Engineers, Machine Learning Engineers, Cloud Infrastructure Engineers, ... The list of specialties is long. The ecosystem is now complex and most countries do not have the right curriculums in place at their universities. 2- The current state-of-the-art models are **huge and extremely inefficient**, they require a lot of compute ressources and electricity. Point number 2 is the most important one. Because if we solve 2, the need for cloud, DevOps, etc... decreases significantly. Meaning we not only solve the problem of training and development cost, we also solve part of the talent acquisition problem. Therefore, it should be the absolute priority: __we need smaller, more efficient models__. But why are current models so inefficient. The answer is simple, the first solution that works is usually not efficient, it just works. We have seen the same things with steam machine and computers. Current transformer based models, for example need several layers of huge matrices that span the whole dictionary. That's a very naive approach, but it works. In a way we still have not surpassed the Deep Learning trope of 15 years ago: Just add more layers. Research in AI should not focus on large language models, it should be focusing on small language models that have results on par with the large ones. That is the only way to keep research and development in AI alive and thriving and open to most. The alternative is to keep using these huge models than only extremely wealthy organisation can make, leading to a concentration of knowledge and to too many tier 2 and tier 3 startups that will lead us to a disastrous pop of the AI investment bubble. However, don't count on Big Tech to develop and popularize these efficient models. They are unlikely to as having a monopoly on AI development is on their advantage as long as they can afford it. Universities, that's your job.

The future of AI is Small and then Smaller.

Tariq Daouda, 6 mon.
We need smaller models, but don't expect big tech to develop them. Current state-of the-art architectures are very inefficient, the cost of training them is getting out of hand, more and more unaffordable for most people and institutions. This effectively is creating a 3 tiers society in AI: 1- Those who can afford model development and training (Big tech mostly). And make *foundation models* for everybody else 2- Those who can only afford the fine tuning of the *foundation models* 3- Those who can only use the fine tuned models through APIs. This is if far from an ideal situation for innovation and development because it effectively creates one producer tier (1) and 2 consumer tiers (2 and 3). It concentrates most of the research and development into tier 1, leaves a little for tier 2 and almost completely eliminates tier 3 from R&D in AI. Tier 3 is most of the countries and most of the people. This also explains why most of the AI startups we see all over the place are at best tier 2, this means that their *Intellectual Property* is low. The barrier to entry for competition is very low, as someone else can easily replicate their product. The situation for tier 3 AI startups is even worst. This is all due to two things: 1- It took almost 20 years for governments and people to realize that AI is coming. In fact they only did it after the fact. The prices for computer hardware (GPUs) where already through the roof and real talent already very rare. Most people still think they need *Data scientists*, in fact they need: AI Researchers, DevOps Engineers, Software Engineers, Machine Learning Engineers, Cloud Infrastructure Engineers, ... The list of specialties is long. The ecosystem is now complex and most countries do not have the right curriculums in place at their universities. 2- The current state-of-the-art models are **huge and extremely inefficient**, they require a lot of compute ressources and electricity. Point number 2 is the most important one. Because if we solve 2, the need for cloud, DevOps, etc... decreases significantly. Meaning we not only solve the problem of training and development cost, we also solve part of the talent acquisition problem. Therefore, it should be the absolute priority: __we need smaller, more efficient models__. But why are current models so inefficient. The answer is simple, the first solution that works is usually not efficient, it just works. We have seen the same things with steam machine and computers. Current transformer based models, for example need several layers of huge matrices that span the whole dictionary. That's a very naive approach, but it works. In a way we still have not surpassed the Deep Learning trope of 15 years ago: Just add more layers. Research in AI should not focus on large language models, it should be focusing on small language models that have results on par with the large ones. That is the only way to keep research and development in AI alive and thriving and open to most. The alternative is to keep using these huge models than only extremely wealthy organisation can make, leading to a concentration of knowledge and to too many tier 2 and tier 3 startups that will lead us to a disastrous pop of the AI investment bubble. However, don't count on Big Tech to develop these efficient and popularize efficient models. They are unlikely to as having a monopoly on AI development is on their advantage as long as they can afford it. Universities, that's your job.

The future of AI is Small and then Smaller.

Tariq Daouda, 6 mon.
We need smaller models, but don't expect big tech to develop them. Current state-of the-art architectures are very inefficient, the cost of training them is getting out of hand, more and more unaffordable for most people and institutions. This effectively is creating a 3 tiers society in AI: 1- Those who can afford model development and training (Big tech mostly). And make *foundation models* for everybody else 2- Those who can only afford the fine tuning of the *foundation models* 3- Those who can only use the fine tunes models through APIs. This is if far from an ideal situation for innovation and development because it effectively creates one producer tier (1) and 2 consumer tiers (2 and 3). It concentrates most of the research and development into tier 1, leaves a little for tier 2 and almost completely eliminates tier 3 from R&D in AI. Tier 3 is most of the countries and most of the people. This also explains why most of the AI startups we see all over the place are at best tier 2, this means that their *Intellectual Property* is low. The barrier to entry for competition is very low, as someone else can easily replicate their product. The situation for tier 3 AI startups is even worst. This is all due to two things: 1- It took almost 20 years for governments and people to realize that AI is coming. In fact they only did it after the fact. The prices for computer hardware (GPUs) where already through the roof and real talent already very rare. Most people still think they need *Data scientists*, in fact they need: AI Researchers, DevOps Engineers, Software Engineers, Machine Learning Engineers, Cloud Infrastructure Engineers, ... The list of specialties is long. The ecosystem is now complex and most countries do not have the right curriculums in place at their universities. 2- The current state-of-the-art models are **huge and extremely inefficient**, they require a lot of compute ressources and electricity. Point number 2 is the most important one. Because if we solve 2, the need for cloud, DevOps, etc... decreases significantly. Meaning we not only solve the problem of training and development cost, we also solve part of the talent acquisition problem. Therefore, it should be the absolute priority: __we need smaller, more efficient models__. But why are current models so inefficient. The answer is simple, the first solution that works is usually not efficient, it just works. We have seen the same things with steam machine and computers. Current transformer based models, for example need several layers of huge matrices that span the whole dictionary. That's a very naive approach, but it works. In a way we still have not surpassed the Deep Learning trope of 15 years ago: Just add more layers. Research in AI should not focus on large language models, it should be focusing on small language models that have results on par with the large ones. That is the only way to keep research and development in AI alive and thriving and open to most. The alternative is to keep using these huge models than only extremely wealthy organisation can make, leading to a concentration of knowledge and to too many tier 2 and tier 3 startups that will lead us to a disastrous pop of the AI investment bubble. However, don't count on Big Tech to develop these efficient and popularize efficient models. They are unlikely to as having a monopoly on AI development is on their advantage as long as they can afford it. Universities, that's your job.