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InsideOutSanta 3 days ago [-]
I don't understand why this is set up the way it is. Maintaining a BitTorrent tracker for models seems like a reasonably good idea, but you have to "apply to join" to be able to contribute?
To what end?
gorszon 2 days ago [-]
Its standard for private trackers, you don't want a malware infested hell like piratebay, plus generally you would want people to seed back what they downloaded at least.
InsideOutSanta 2 days ago [-]
> generally you would want people to seed back what they downloaded at least
But the goal is preservation rather than sharing.
I'm confused about how the economics of that would work. If I wanted to contribute to this, I'd have to download the models, so I'd immediately be in the red, and then I could never get out of it because who's going to download these obsolete models? There's no download demand for them; if they were, the whole project would not be necessary.
torben-friis 2 days ago [-]
>then I could never get out of it because who's going to download these obsolete models?
Private trackers usually overcome this issue by also rewarding the length of time you share, even if no one downloaded. Either you get a ratio of 1 or share for a full week/whatever length they decide is enough.
The ai description of this specific site seems to imply they do it as well.
imtringued 2 days ago [-]
You shouldn't be confused about just the economics of the bittorrent tracker.
You should be worried about the entire economy because it is founded on the principle of paying running costs with one time payments. Basically, neoclassical economists are pathological liars. You cannot model a realistic economy with just a scalar price vector without farming out the planning process to an omnipotent entity.
You see, everything in the economy has two costs: the cost of existence which is a recurring cost (which also happens to be a fixed cost) and the cost of performing the action, usually known as variable costs. The options market has figured that stuff out a long time ago.
Yep, we rely on an economy and are unwilling to pay for its existence. We truly are incorrigible idiots.
Paying running costs with one time expenses is a recipe for growth dependence and planned obsolescence. The only way to bring in money is via a sale, which is a one time event, but your fixed costs are recurring. So you have to sell more products. If you build a product that lasts too long you run into a problem because you didn't charge the customer the running costs.
Oh, I forgot to mention the actual point. Availability/readiness costs money and therefore needs to be compensated even when nothing is actually done.
mpvjs 2 days ago [-]
[dead]
simonmales 3 days ago [-]
Accountability?
InsideOutSanta 3 days ago [-]
You mean for people trying to poison the swarm? Or what? I'm genuinely confused.
satuke 3 days ago [-]
people not maintaining 1:1 ratio, read about private trackers
InsideOutSanta 3 days ago [-]
The content will be mostly obsolete LLM models. I don't see the incentive to download them in large quantities.
phantompeace 3 days ago [-]
I can definitely picture a piece of content that's been scrubbed from everywhere except old copies of LLMs in which it still exists in a lossy form, with people trying to extract it from those old copies with the help of newer models. Private trackers have thrived for decades and will continue to do so because they allow a community to foster around a shared purpose (pardon the pun).
Although that being said, i doubt i would go through the trouble of signing up just for this purpose, personally.
InsideOutSanta 3 days ago [-]
> I can definitely picture a piece of content that's been scrubbed from everywhere except old copies of LLMs in which it still exists in a lossy form
Yes. So it seems to me that the purpose of the project is to maintain a common good, but then I don't see how keeping it private achieves that.
captn3m0 3 days ago [-]
Just do it like how libgen does. Maybe publish a RSS torrent feed people can subscribe to for the newer publications - knowing someone is curating the feed.
Weird to have open licensed stuff on private tracker.
tliltocatl 2 days ago [-]
And what are you going to train the models on?
NamlchakKhandro 2 days ago [-]
[dead]
jcelerier 3 days ago [-]
Why the restriction to safetensors and GGUF? onnx is the more common format and specifically made for interchange.
wtallis 2 days ago [-]
Does anybody use ONNX for LLMs? I've only encountered it for small models packaged to run on consumer devices, and never seen it show up in any workstation or datacenter scenario.
jcelerier 2 days ago [-]
If you have Google Chrome or Microsoft edge installed on your computer then you have a few gigabytes of onnx llm (Gemma for chrome, Phi for edge iirc) installed. On my side I use onnx for all local ai on https://ossia.io ; works great.
chris_wot 2 days ago [-]
You can use ONNX directly with WebAssembly (Wasm) through the ONNX Runtime Web library (onnxruntime-web). If you use transformer.js [1] then it can load the entire LLM into memory and you can run it from the browser.
Not an LLM, but I had it load the whisper transcriber in a page when I built a podcast timecode logger. [2] I plan to try to get the AI generated podcasts into my MTH120 study notes [3] from Gemini transcribed.
Edge does run Phi-4-mini using Chromium's ONNX Runtime, but Chrome uses LiteRT-LM to run Gemini Nano, and doesn't ship it to the browser in ONNX format.
satuke 3 days ago [-]
[flagged]
randomblock1 2 days ago [-]
What is the difference between this and https://pirateface.co/ ? Private tracker, and a focus on old models?
gorszon 2 days ago [-]
There doesn't need to be a difference, as with other torrent trackers, there are many of them, and I think thats good if nothing else, for redundancy.
modimihir 3 days ago [-]
I see the merit in keeping a decentralized archive for open models. But there has to be a better way to do it vs keeping it behind auth and an application form.
satuke 3 days ago [-]
it's light, not like usual trackers, it's only to make sure people seed 1:1 and to reduce load on a couple of people seeding large models to everyone. the only way to do that is to enforce it, and for that you need a place where you can possibly enforce it without making it platform run, so, that's why you have this.
leoedin 2 days ago [-]
> it's only to make sure people seed 1:1
Surely nobody is downloading these torrents (today) because they want the data. The only motivation to use this website is to be part of an archive. So who would leech from it? Why put up barriers to entry?
To what end?
But the goal is preservation rather than sharing.
I'm confused about how the economics of that would work. If I wanted to contribute to this, I'd have to download the models, so I'd immediately be in the red, and then I could never get out of it because who's going to download these obsolete models? There's no download demand for them; if they were, the whole project would not be necessary.
Private trackers usually overcome this issue by also rewarding the length of time you share, even if no one downloaded. Either you get a ratio of 1 or share for a full week/whatever length they decide is enough.
The ai description of this specific site seems to imply they do it as well.
You should be worried about the entire economy because it is founded on the principle of paying running costs with one time payments. Basically, neoclassical economists are pathological liars. You cannot model a realistic economy with just a scalar price vector without farming out the planning process to an omnipotent entity.
You see, everything in the economy has two costs: the cost of existence which is a recurring cost (which also happens to be a fixed cost) and the cost of performing the action, usually known as variable costs. The options market has figured that stuff out a long time ago. Yep, we rely on an economy and are unwilling to pay for its existence. We truly are incorrigible idiots.
Paying running costs with one time expenses is a recipe for growth dependence and planned obsolescence. The only way to bring in money is via a sale, which is a one time event, but your fixed costs are recurring. So you have to sell more products. If you build a product that lasts too long you run into a problem because you didn't charge the customer the running costs.
Oh, I forgot to mention the actual point. Availability/readiness costs money and therefore needs to be compensated even when nothing is actually done.
Although that being said, i doubt i would go through the trouble of signing up just for this purpose, personally.
Yes. So it seems to me that the purpose of the project is to maintain a common good, but then I don't see how keeping it private achieves that.
Weird to have open licensed stuff on private tracker.
Not an LLM, but I had it load the whisper transcriber in a page when I built a podcast timecode logger. [2] I plan to try to get the AI generated podcasts into my MTH120 study notes [3] from Gemini transcribed.
1. https://github.com/huggingface/transformers.js/
2. https://chrissherlock.github.io/mth120/podcast_timecode_logg...
3. https://chrissherlock.github.io/mth120/
Surely nobody is downloading these torrents (today) because they want the data. The only motivation to use this website is to be part of an archive. So who would leech from it? Why put up barriers to entry?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oink%27s_Pink_Palace
https://pirateface.co/audnai/penclaw-GLM-5.3-abliterated