Understanding Large Language Models: Open Source vs. Closed Source LLMs

It’s been almost two years since many of us started using AI-powered assistants like GPT, and most of us know that this technology is powered by Large Language Models (LLMs). These revolutionary AI systems are transforming many aspects of our lives – from how we work to how we interact with everyone from our grocer to our doctor. But how much do most of us really know about LLMs? This article is a primer for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of this life-changing tech. 

What are Large Language Models?

Large Language Models, or LLMs, are sophisticated AI systems that are designed to emulate human text creation. Through training on massive datasets, LLMs have honed the ability to generate responses that mirror the complexity and natural flow of human conversation.This capability makes them indispensable in applications such as enhancing the functionality of chatbots, virtual assistants, content generation, and translation services.

The evolution of LLMs has been a journey of progressive innovation. Initially, these models could only produce straightforward, almost robotic, text. But, as more data was analyzed and computational power advanced, the models grew in complexity. They began to understand the subtleties of language, including idiomatic expressions and sarcasm, which are pivotal for human-like text generation.This transformation has been pivotal in the development of advanced systems adept at interpreting and imitating human communication.

What are Open Source LLMs?

Open source Large Language Models are LLMs whose code is publicly accessible, allowing developers and researchers to inspect, modify, and enhance the underlying algorithms. This transparency fosters a collaborative environment, accelerating innovation and enabling the community to adapt models for various applications. Open source models are known for their robustness and adaptability, and they exist thanks to the collective efforts of the global developer community. Read more about some of our Open Source models here and here. 

What are Closed Source LLMs?

In contrast, closed source Large Language Models, like GPT-3, are proprietary. Their creators retain exclusive rights to the code and algorithms, restricting access to the inner workings of these models. While this can limit the collaborative potential, it also ensures that the developers have full control over the model's evolution, sometimes leading to more focused and optimized outcomes. 

It's noteworthy that the development of closed source models is generally very costly due to the significant investment required for research, development, and maintenance – all of which are typically undertaken without the potential cost-saving contributions from a broader community of developers.

Where to find Large Language Models?

Open source LLMs can be found on various platforms and repositories that cater to the AI and machine learning community. Hugging Face is a prominent platform that offers a wide range of open source models, including GPT variants and other transformer-based models. You can also easily filter these models based on the specific task you are interested in.

Another way to get started exploring open source models is to check out some of the models that our research team here at Arcee AI has recently released:

• Arcee-Nova excels in reasoning, creative writing, coding, and general language understanding, making it highly versatile across various language tasks. It is one of the top-performing open source models tested on OpenLLM Leaderboard 2.0.
• Arcee-Agent  is particularly adept at API Integration, database operation, code generation and execution, and multi-step task execution.
• Arcee-Spark is a small model (7B parameters) whose combination of compact size and strong performance makes it suitable for real-time applications like chatbots and customer service automation, edge computing scenarios, cost-effective AI implementation across organizations, and rapid prototyping of AI-powered features.

In contrast to the publicly accessible nature of open source LLMs, closed source large language models are accessible only through commercial and proprietary platforms. Major tech corporations (such as OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft) provide access to their sophisticated models via paid API services and cloud platforms. Notably, prime examples of closed source LLMs include OpenAI's GPT-4 and Anthropic's Claude.

Learn more about open source LLMs  

We encourage you to try out some of our open source models listed above, and to reach out to us if you have questions about them (the best way to contact us: drop us a comment on LinkedIn or X). And if you're interested in leveraging open source LLMs to develop your own model, then go ahead and schedule a demo with us. We'll introduce you to our end-to-end platform for training and deploying your own custom models using the latest open source LLMS as a robust foundation.