MechanismArticle
Training is becoming more complex and abstracted, with the ability to train a base model to be a general agentic reasoner becoming opaque – this is causing fewer entities to build base models and reducing interest in open-source AI investment.
As training becomes more complex and abstracted, fewer entities are building base models, reducing open-source AI investment. ✦ AI generated
Interconnects AI · Interconnects · 2026-08-17 · original ↗
Training is getting more complex and more abstracted. The current open model ecosystem is buoyed by an explosion in interest in post-training open models... There is a shift happening where the ability to train a base model to be a general agentic reasoner is becoming opaque like at-scale pretraining practices from a few years ago... As there's less interest in training the entire model, there's less interest in investing in open-source AI.
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explains mechanism → As the open model ecosystem diversifies, more companies will build a long tail of specialized models, while fewer companies will keep chasing the absolute, bleeding-edge open frontier.the author · Interconnectsprovides context → Open-weight models are inherently decelerationist for the AI buildout, which is ironic given that self-described accelerationists tend to champion them.Dean Ball · Interconnects