It’s tricky. There is code involved, and the code is open source. There is a neural net involved, and it is released as open weights. The part that is not available is the “input” that went into the training. This seems to be a common way in which models are released as both “open source” and “open weights”, but you wouldn’t necessarily be able to replicate the outcome with $5M or whatever it takes to train the foundation model, since you’d have to guess about what they used as their input training corpus.

I see. Yeah, I agree with you there.

I think you’re right circa a few years ago. However, as someone working in AI, I don’t think it is true any longer. I’m not saying the substack article is legit, btw, just that the fulcrum has shifted–fewer people can now do much more, aided by algorithms and boosted by AI system prompts. Especially if it’s a group internal to a company that has database access etc.

Oh, I’ve questioned everything.

Unpopular opinion: It’s time to bring back church.

No algorithms controlling you; locally based and strengthens community; a broad spectrum of rich and poor meeting and being seen; opportunities to care and be cared about on a weekly basis; opportunities to develop social skills and to really make an impact in your community based on social missions like food banks and myriad activities. Plus, you meet people not because you want to change their minds, but because they’re just there, trying to be better people. And then once in a while, good conversations turn into minds changed.

Context: I used to be Mormon and left because I no longer believed, but I now see a hell of a lot of good in church, as long as it isn’t a control freak over your life and sense of self.

I love this approach.

Nit: “If you can find prior art that describes such a system before June 13, 2013, you could be a winner.” … 2013 is a typo I’m guessing?

This is almost completely true, but I would add the caveat that PWAs (progressive web apps) are not as easy to discover and less familiar to install as an app in an app/play store. It might also be because it’s in Apple and Google’s best interest to not streamline that. But it’s still an obstacle nevertheless.

Aegis on Android is also very nice (and open source).

Check out Aegis if you’re on Android. (See my other comment).

On Android, I replaced Authy with the open-source Aegis app. It’s just as functional, allows exporting, and doesn’t tie your data to your phone number (nor store it on a central system–not sure if Authy does this or not).