Ask HN: What would it take to provide free AI to the underprivileged?

1 points by herodoturtle 55 days ago | 2 comments

Hi folks,

Seeing headlines recently of Altman's vision for users purchasing access to AI as a utility (the same way we pay for electricity).

Whilst I can appreciate the convenience of this, I'm not sure it would be a practical / affordable option in may parts of the world (in my case I'm specifically thinking of the African context, but I'm sure it applies elsewhere too).

What would it take to host and provide access to an "open source" AI for the benefit of the underprivileged?

I'm specifically wondering about the technical possibilities (open source LLMs?), and back-of-the-envelope calculations for hosting and computation.

There is going to be a real need for this in my part of the world, and myself and some others are working with a government think tank to help fund and ultimately drive this.

Thanks.

saidnooneever 55 days ago |

if there is some way to decentralize the compute properly, it might be possible to envision some kind of AI that you can use if you allocate it some compute to use or something. like sharing ur device's resources or so on the network to get some perks on it like more resource provisioned is more context window.

the problem is that if its centralized like now, it costs a huge amount for the centralized party to run the operation. ofc not as much as they earn, so it could likely be much cheaper but it will cost electricity, hardware etc. etc.

now, i dont know how to 'decentralize' and i know its kinda a buzzword. but in my mind it would only work.

bundle all ppls resources to be a giant super computer. distribute queries over nodes that are not busy with normal user behaviours etc

herodoturtle 55 days ago | |

This is great advice we will look into this thank you