I don't want to be too cynical, but OpenAI used to be more open too until they decided releasing weights was too dangerous (/not profitable enough?), what guarantee is there that Eleuther doesn't also close their doors at some point?
I fail to see creating and releasing models as black boxes and strictly monetizing them while harvesting public data under the name of academic research as net positive.
They suck in public data, create models, let them loose, let hyped people improve them and profit off of data and people's free work.
I mean, ultimately there isn’t one. I’m just providing examples of how we fulfill the things that the OP says they want, as they seem unaware of our work.
But I’m confused by the anti non-profit vibes in this comment section. We aren’t saying that becoming a non-profit makes us ethical people, that would be a silly argument. But people do realize that the alternative would be to become a for-profit entity right?
We’re still the same community-driven open collaborative research lab we’ve always been. But incorporating allows us to do things like hire full time staff, enter organizationally binding legal agreements, and protect our members. Between the options of becoming a for-profit and a non-profit, the later seems clearly better suited for our goals.
I think people are extrapolating from their experience with OpenAI, which is understandable albeit unfair to you. "Open"AI burned a lot of bridges with their bait-and-switch, so developers are weary of trusting another company making similar claims. Personally, I welcome any actually open company, and I will continue to chastise OpenAI for their duplicity every chance I get.
