What does a bare-bones pickup truck have in common with a state-of-the-art AI lab?
Both share a disruptive idea.
In June 2023, Slate Auto made waves in the automotive world by unveiling the Blank Slate: a no-frills electric pickup truck priced at $24,950. This vehicle goes against the grain of luxury and tech-heavy alternatives, featuring hand-crank windows, a simple interior without a stereo, speakers, or touchscreen interfaces, and even lacking paint. The idea behind the Blank Slate is intriguing: a blank canvas inviting users to customize it according to their own preferences and requirements.
A month later, we witnessed a parallel innovation in the realm of artificial intelligence. Thinking Machines Lab released Inkling, a remarkable AI model consisting of 975 billion parameters, trained from scratch on a staggering 45 trillion tokens. This model is entirely open source, presenting a powerful tool without the usual frills found in high-end AI products. If you visualize AI models as colors, Inkling would be a neutral gray, embodying its generalist approach ready for customization.
The Blank Slate and Inkling epitomize a return to essentialism, prioritizing functionality and open-ended potential over unnecessary features. In the case of Slate’s electric truck, the simplicity invites innovative personalization: users can opt for upgrades like paint jobs, sound systems, or performance enhancements tailored to their specific needs. Similarly, Inkling, through its fine-tuning platform Tinker, allows users to build on its capabilities, customizing the model based on their unique requirements while offering the foundational strength of a robust AI capable of performing across various domains.
Thinking Machines isn’t just providing Inkling out of altruism. While the AI model’s weights are available for free, its customization is a revenue-generating venture. The company encourages users to invest in fine-tuning options, similar to how consumers might purchase accessories for their blank-slate trucks. The strategy of selling customization highlights a notable trend where businesses create a versatile yet bare-bones product and motivate customers to personalize and enhance it to meet their exact specifications.
Notably, Inkling can be seen as the pickup truck of American artificial intelligence. It’s an adaptable, rugged solution that serves as a foundation for open-source AI development in the U.S. Just like a pickup—renowned for its general-purpose utility and ability to tackle diverse tasks—Inkling is designed to perform across a wide range of applications, including reasoning, coding, and even vision and audio tasks. This capacity makes it a highly appealing choice for businesses and developers looking to harness the power of AI without the constraints of rigid structures and high costs.
The broader implications of this trend are profound. In a tech landscape increasingly defined by proprietary models and locked-down platforms, both Slate Auto and Thinking Machines Lab showcase a refreshing alternative: platforms that lower barriers to entry for consumers and encourage innovation through customization. This model not only democratizes access to technology but also fosters communities around those products, inviting collaboration and innovation in ways that pre-packaged solutions cannot achieve.
The emergence of generalist models like Inkling and customizable vehicles like the Blank Slate points toward a future where users are empowered to shape their technology landscape. By seeking out and utilizing these foundational tools, individuals can tailor their experiences to fit their unique needs and preferences, echoing the age-old human desire to innovate, adapt, and personalize.