I'm very thankful for the section on reproducibility. I argue this is the single biggest hangup for the entire space. You CAN have temperature and determinism. I've been waiting for six years for a major provider to offer it, there is demand, but I've slowly come to realize the current game theory does not support it.
For providers, not supporting deterministic eval means:
- users use more tokens = more money
- providers can generate more tokens per compute = more money
- providers have cheaper hardware options (GPUs) = more money
- providers models are harder to extract/distill = more money
- providers are harder to hold liable for outputs = more money
- providers can secretly use other models = more money
- providers are harder to compare against others = more money
- providers can cherry pick performance results = more money
For providers, not supporting deterministic eval means:
- users use more tokens = more money
- providers can generate more tokens per compute = more money
- providers have cheaper hardware options (GPUs) = more money
- providers models are harder to extract/distill = more money
- providers are harder to hold liable for outputs = more money
- providers can secretly use other models = more money
- providers are harder to compare against others = more money
- providers can cherry pick performance results = more money