What does it take to train a frontier model? What's the know-how, the secret sauce that makes firms lets OpenAI and Deepmind push the limits of what's possible? How much are Chinese firms benefitting from western open source, and in the long term is it possible for western labs to maintain an edge?
The hosts of the excellent Latent Space podcast, Alessio Fanelli of Decibel VC and Shawn Wang of Smol AI, come on to discuss.
We get into:
Outtro music: CHEKI https://open.spotify.com/track/1zKL2bOEkMDGuIjLhG34YA?si=9a713a88aa3d4f71
Cover photo: "Inkstand with A Madman Distilling His Brains" 1600s Urbino. Kind of like training a model! https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/188899
The met description: In this whimsical maiolica sculpture, a well-dressed man leans forward in his seat with his head in a covered pot set above a fiery hearth. The vessel beside the hearth almost certainly held ink. The man’s actions are explained by an inscription on the chair: "I distill my brain and am totally happy." Thus the task of the writer is equated with distillation—the process through which a liquid is purified by heating and cooling, extracting its essence.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Swing State Appreciation Hip Hop Minimix
What To Do About Xinjiang
Why Xi Is All In On Climate Change
CCP Influence Ops in Japan: Everywhere Yet Nowhere in Particular
What Does US-China Corruption Really Look Like? Also, iFlyTek
China and the NBA
China's True Tech Ambitions
Liberalism: The Light That Failed
TikTok, WeChat and Trump
War in Taiwan
Adam Tooze on World Order, Then and Now
The Mulan Debacle
Rise and Fall of a Suzhou Soft Serve Baron
Land Wars: China's Agrarian Revolution
Scholarstage on Xi, War in Taiwan, the CCP Toolkit, and the Chinese Tradition
What China Wants
Superpower Showdown: Tale of a Trade War
TikTok, Tesla, Kanye and Open Source
How Sanctions Fail US Policymakers
How Corruption Works in China
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free