Open models in perpetual catch-up - by Nathan Lambert

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The open-closed gap, distillation, innovation timescales, how open models win, specialized models, what’s missing, etc.

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 models of discussion are coming from China, where previously they were almost always Meta’s Llamas. These moments of discussion are always reflective for me — for, despite being one of open models’ biggest advocates, I always find the…

Open models in perpetual catch-up - by Nathan Lambert

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