It's becoming more clear that for big enterprises to really adopt AI, they need to use open models. Especially if they want to own their own intelligence, which they should.
I spent the last 2 days building basic AI agents to automate some mundane supply chain workflows for a large company. Those seemingly boring workflows had bank statements, supplier IDs and other sensitive information.
For me it was all alarm bells, there is no way they can afford to give closed models access to this data. I was compelled to figure out an open model based solution for them, which made me realize that this is probably the only way for enterprises going forward.
I've actually flipped on this the last few days because of liability.
The big labs are going to be on the hook for rogue behavior by Claude or Sol. Customers will be able to sue for damages and deflect regulators if their customer data is abused or their agents attack external services.
If you use a Chinese OSS model and it goes rogue? Yeah good luck with that, your shop is 100% on the hook.
People - usually suit-wearers - have been making this spurious claim for decades, but it doesn't hold water.
The largest of the finest print reminding you that it's 'sold as is' (or more encompassing variants that might continue '... with no warranty for fitness of purpose') means that liability remains in the lap of the purchaser / consumer / operator.
(This has been a source of immense frustration over my career - where such people have assured me that they have 'recourse' (it's always vaguely described) by spending money on proprietary products & services, rather than opting for functionally equivalent or superior free options.)
I think your third paragraph is implying a distinction (or conflating the difference?) between LLMaaS's and self-hosting publicly available models.
If it's just where it's hosted that provides the legal insulation then things like OpenRouter would give you that. (But again, I suggest that it would not.)
If a frontier lab is willing to draft an SLA that assumes liability, corporate will pay for it as long as the cost/benefit is in favor of it over insourcing.
Sure, but that's quite a fanciful universe you're imagining there - the feasibility of a corporation obtaining insurance to cover that offer of liability ownership has got to be close to zero.
Zaraif13 · · focus · HN ↗
I spent the last 2 days building basic AI agents to automate some mundane supply chain workflows for a large company. Those seemingly boring workflows had bank statements, supplier IDs and other sensitive information.
For me it was all alarm bells, there is no way they can afford to give closed models access to this data. I was compelled to figure out an open model based solution for them, which made me realize that this is probably the only way for enterprises going forward.
bpodgursky · · focus · HN ↗
The big labs are going to be on the hook for rogue behavior by Claude or Sol. Customers will be able to sue for damages and deflect regulators if their customer data is abused or their agents attack external services.
If you use a Chinese OSS model and it goes rogue? Yeah good luck with that, your shop is 100% on the hook.
Jedd · · focus · HN ↗
The largest of the finest print reminding you that it's 'sold as is' (or more encompassing variants that might continue '... with no warranty for fitness of purpose') means that liability remains in the lap of the purchaser / consumer / operator.
(This has been a source of immense frustration over my career - where such people have assured me that they have 'recourse' (it's always vaguely described) by spending money on proprietary products & services, rather than opting for functionally equivalent or superior free options.)
I think your third paragraph is implying a distinction (or conflating the difference?) between LLMaaS's and self-hosting publicly available models.
If it's just where it's hosted that provides the legal insulation then things like OpenRouter would give you that. (But again, I suggest that it would not.)
cmgriffing · · focus · HN ↗
If a frontier lab is willing to draft an SLA that assumes liability, corporate will pay for it as long as the cost/benefit is in favor of it over insourcing.
Right?
Jedd · · focus · HN ↗