I hadn't realized they updated this model last month! You can use it here.
Apertus 1.5 70B is Switzerland's latest fully open multilingual large language model developed by the Swiss AI Initiative. It is designed to advance transparent, compliant, and high-performance AI while remaining fully open throughout the entire training pipeline.
- Swiss AI Initiative : Developed by the Swiss AI Initiative to provide a fully open, transparent, and compliant foundation model.
- Fully Open : Open model weights, open training data, complete training recipes, and publicly documented training methodology.
- Massively Multilingual – Native support for 1,811 languages, enabling broad multilingual understanding and generation.
- Compliance First – Trained using fully compliant datasets while respecting retrospective opt-out requests and reducing memorization through the Goldfish loss methodology.
- Long Context – Supports context windows of up to 262,144 tokens, enabling large document analysis and extended conversations.
- Tool Calling Support – Supports agentic workflows and tool use when deployed with compatible inference frameworks such as recent versions of vLLM.
- Open Deployment Ecosystem – Compatible with Transformers, vLLM, SGLang, MLX and GGUF deployment formats.
22 Comments
MakingWork@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 4d
Commenting so I can test it out tomorrow.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
I've been trying it this evening. A bit more sycophancy than I'd like, and it has made technical mistakes in area's I'm an expert. But nothing egregious when web-search was enabled, and I believe the hosted version at publicai doesn't have thinking enabled (which makes a big difference in computational tasks).
That said, it's not far off from models ~6 months ago imo. Which seems a fine gap for the ethical/compliant/eco version.
victorz@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 4d
Why not just use your own brain for tasks in those areas where you are an expert? Honest question. Don't you enjoy those tasks if you're an expert?
FoolHen@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
That's how you test stuff, look for mistakes
victorz@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 4d
But they're an expert. Why the need for someone/something else to do their job? (And risk discovering their job safety is at risk.)
TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 4d
If i was to evaluate something, i‘d probably test it on something i’m an expert in, because then i can immediately spot the mistakes. If i test it one something I really don’t know at all, then fact checking/ finding mistakes is gonna become tedious.
victorz@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
So, these cases exist:
Sorry if this is all obvious, I just don't see the point.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
I am making a public recommendation on the internet. I am good at some things that AI will often be used for, such as complicated mathematics. So, as a reviewer, I want to see if the AI will help people with those things well (specifically, help people understand complicated math papers).
Artisian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
As another example, teachers pay teachers to share their created teaching materials. Big part of their job; huge need to share results/progress/ideas.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
No, not all tasks that require expertise are fun. For example, one must be a very talented plumber to properly manage a backed-up city sewer. But I suspect the plumber doesn't enjoy a lot of the tasks involved.
In my setting, technical writing of obvious (to me) facts is not a great time. First drafts are murder for me to create.
victorz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Understandable, I suppose.
How did you become an expert in something that you absolutely hate doing?
Artisian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Because I really like parts of it! Solving puzzles is a grand time. Getting to see students go from ignorance to understanding is quite rewarding.
But writing that first draft. Writing the AI can have.
Kinda like how one often commutes to rewarding work, but hates the commute.
victorz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Thanks, this paints a clearer picture 🙂
victorz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Any info on how they keep their cooling and running operation from polluting the surrounding environment?
Artisian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
This is half remembered, but I was at a conference with some of the relevant hardware specialists. They used the same computing cluster as is used for computing the world weather reports and major climate models. So there's essentially no construction harms to consider; we were going to do climate modeling regardless (because we are all quite worried about the boiling planet). Similarly, most of the upkeep pollution you're thinking of is due to keeping many computers running and functional (and that was going to happen regardless).
They knew when they were building the giant computing clusters for climate modeling that they did not want to destroy the planet with their climate modeling. So I believe these datacenters are largely kept near hydropower (many hydroelectric dams in Switzerland), and waste heat is likewise paired with uses (eg, heating offices).
(c.f. energy in switzerland)
Artisian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Found the page for the datacenter, I think? here. They use lake cooling?
victorz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Thank you for this! I read through that page, and also this sheet, which was linked from that page.
It seems like a highly sophisticated cooling system indeed, and they mention how the water is actually carefully returned to the lake at the proper temperature to avoid disturbing the ecosystems there, etc.
When we see reports from the US about how data centers turn the tap water in people's nearby homes into brown mush, how does this happen, do you reckon? Is it the water coming out of the data centers that is brown, or does the water consumption of the data centers disturb the environment in a way that the water sources of the homes become muddy somehow?
Like, is it pollution or just mud? If it's pollution, I'd be concerned for this lake source of cooling water when the water returns. Otherwise I don't feel so worried. 😄
Artisian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
I don't understand the reporting on data centers turning tapwater brown; it doesn't make logical sense to me. reporting I can see with these keywords is pretty bad (as in, uncurious about the mechanism). My best guess is that, in the game of telephone, someone has confused a data center turning on with a data center being constructed. And in construction, it's easy to imagine breaking a pipe (by weight or force or mismanaged pressure) and causing this sort of thing. Please let me know if you've got better sources; I'm having a bad time of it. The other mechanism I could imagine is drawing down an aquifer, so that what used to be a clean well becomes filthy. But then again it's probably not waste from the datacenter you'd see?
My understanding is that data center cooling water can pick up trace metals and dust. But you don't need pure water for lake cooling, and it's not particularly expensive to do heavy-metal filtering on the waste (should it be much different from the lake bed) afaik?
victorz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Now that is a very good point. I'm willing to bet this is the case, because when you mention it, I don't think I ever heard anyone mention a real, actual cause for the water turning brown, just that it did. And I don't think I've heard mention how long after construction has finished that the water stayed brown.
That's not to say that it isn't a disaster that the water turned brown to begin with. There should definitely be some rules and regulations in place where there is sufficient measures taken to ensure people can have proper water for consumption and for hygiene, that they used to have before they started construction. This should not be the problem of the residents.
But yeah, now that you mention it, I also find it odd that just cooling in and of itself would cause the water to be so contaminated. It shouldn't acquire any extra sludge or anything more than perhaps some minerals from piping, or something.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 8h
Agreed on right to clean water, though I'm also pretty confident that this is in ~every state legal code. Certainly a breach of contract for the water company. Sadly accidents (and rushed, poor quality work) do happen, and regulators do fail to act on things, and it's hard to identify+fix a broken pipe. Regulatory failure is presumably happening much more these days, due to the deep cuts. see, for example, this headline (which I have not checked carefully).
victorz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4h
I don't know what's more infuriating, a) there are no rules and they can treat the nearby residents however they want, or b) they are breaking rules that are in place but reaping no consequences.
Either way I'm infuriated. 😆😭