I’ve always had the sense that corporations and institutions will be the prominent players in AI. It never occurred to me that systems like GPT-4 would be made available to the masses.
GPT-4 was enough of a disruption to compel many to sign the Pause Letter,1 and is what led me to begin my own deep dive into The Brain Wave.
Only 6 weeks later ChatGPT has major competition: HuggingChat
NOTE: At the time of writing there are a dozen or so competitors internationally, including tech giants in the U.S. and China as well as a Russian bank
Hugging Face isn't Just a Cute Emoji 🤗
Hugging Face created HuggingChat to showcase that as of April 2023 it is possible to build an open source alternative to ChatGPT. There have been many criticisms of OpenAI over the years. While they initially started with noble goals of providing open source AI, OpenAI has not been inclusive and reluctant to release models, causing some to call on them to change their name to “ClosedAI.”2
HuggingChat is a shot across the bow. Unlike ChatGPT, users don’t need to create an account to use the service, and chats aren’t used for model training or saved for any reason. The model in use is known to be very good and backed by open source conversational AI. Time will tell if they stay the course beyond the current v0, but early feedback suggests this is one to watch. I’m personally interested in the coding aspect of this, as it could also add pressure to Microsoft’s paid Co-Pilot service.3
I am certain these points are highlighted intentionally, and I’ll admit I experienced dystopian pangs when copying this article into ChatGPT to check for grammatical errors.
“Will ChatGPT give me bad advice related to HuggingFace?”
“Will OpenAI remember me for being disloyal?”
However effective HuggingChat becomes, it is imperative that we ensure the continued availability of true open source solutions.
So, What is Hugging Face Anyways?
There is a lot to learn, but the very short version is that Hugging Face is:
A Company
First and foremost Hugging Face wants to make money. However, they have also found ways to keep the AI/ML community near and dear. This sets them apart bigtime, even though many are still skeptical about intentions long term.
A Community
The Hugging Face community comes together to not only discuss AI/ML happenings, but also to share development and related work. If they can maintain momentum then community backing will be a key differentiator.4
A Platform
It’s one thing to have a community of people who are interested in all of the things, but Hugging Face makes platforms available to host a variety of related aspects including apps, models, datasets, and more. Tightly coupling community and solutions shows a lot of potential.
TLDR; the Hugging Face rabbit hole goes deep, and so do its roots. It’s a one stop shop for AI/ML enthusiasts and professionals.
It seems that Hugging Face is becoming what OpenAI set out to be.
The Takeaway
In their own words, Hugging Face is on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science. I believe that these are critical aspects of AI developments and I think we can all get behind this approach.
OpenAI certainly has a first mover advantage with ChatGPT, but Hugging Face’s HuggingChat has strong support from a community that felt left behind by OpenAI.
Given the truly open approach, effective tooling, and community inclusion, HuggingChat is a no doubt a heavyweight contender.
The Brain Wave’s first article about the pause letter: AI Demands Action Now
https://brainwavelabs.substack.com/p/ai-demands-action-now
“For a lot of AI researchers, OpenAI has been a huge disappointment.” - YCombinator Hacker News, 2020
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23895684
Microsoft argues it was OK to ignore open source software licenses to train AI coding models, asks plaintiff to prove their code was used
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/31/microsoft_github_openai_copilot/
Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast
https://www.thealternativeboard.com/blog/culture-eats-strategy