Open models in perpetual catch-up - by Nathan Lambert
interconnects.ai · 2,219 words · saved by 1 readers
The open-closed gap, distillation, innovation timescales, how open models win, specialized models, what’s missing, etc.
Open models in perpetual catch-up The open-closed gap, distillation, innovation timescales, how open models win, specialized models, what’s missing, etc. Nathan Lambert Feb 17, 2026 ∙ Paid 72 5 10 Share Upgrade to paid to play voiceover Every 4-6 months a new open-weights model comes out that causes a clamor of discussion on how open models are closer than they ever have been to the best closed, frontier models. The most recent is Z.ai’s GLM 5 model, which is the latest, leading open weights model from a Chinese company. In the last 12 months the new part of this story is that all of the open
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