Exploring the Evolution of Language Models: From Llama 1 to Open Router Marketplace

As AI bug bites, [Speaker] ventures into open-source language models, founding Open Router to democratize access and unlock the potential of multimodel inference.

1. The speaker started Open Router in early 2023 to explore the new market of AI software.
2. They wanted to answer the question: "Will this market be winner-take-all?"
3. Open AI was the leading model, with a few others coming up on its tail.
4. The speaker built prototypes and investigated open source options.
5. In January, users showed interest in different types of models, starting with moderation.
6. Users wanted to understand moderation policies and avoid being deplatformed.
7. Some users generated content that was questionably against terms of service.
8. In February, the open-source race began, with models like Bloom 176b and OPT by Facebook.
9. Llama 1, a smaller model, outperformed GPT3 on most benchmarks in February.
10. Alpaca, the first successful distillation of LLM style and knowledge onto a small model, was created in March.
11. Alpaca was made for less than $600 and marked a significant breakthrough.
12. The speaker saw potential in making unique data available as a service through language models.
13. Open Router initially aimed to collect all the models and help people understand how to use them.
14. In April, the Window AI Chrome extension was launched, allowing users to choose their model for web apps.
15. Open Router officially launched in May, co-founded by the creator of Plasmo.
16. Open Router now offers an API that provides access to all language models and data about usage trends.
17. The platform has grown 10 to 100% month over month for two years and hosts over 400 models from more than 60 providers.
18. Open Router initially functioned as a collection of models with limited providers, but the ecosystem soon became more complex.
19. The platform now aggregates providers at different price points and helps developers maintain uptime for open source or closed source models.
20. Real-world data on latency and throughput is provided for each model, making Open Router a marketplace and an optimization tool.
21. The speaker believes that the future of AI will involve multimodal models tailored to various purposes.
22. Inference will be a commodity, with selection and routing being crucial for developers.
23. Active model usage on Open Router has steadily grown, and the platform aims to make the ecosystem more homogeneous and easier to work with.
24. The speaker's company is working on adding new modalities like image generation and improving prompt observability, discovery, and pricing.

Source: AI Engineer via YouTube

❓ What do you think? What implications do the democratization of AI models and the rise of multimodel inference have on the future of software development, data analysis, and decision-making? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!