After training ๐๐ฆ๐จ๐ฅ๐๐๐ on ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฌ for nearly a month, I've come to realize something most people overlook: ๐ข๐ง๐๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ฎ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ค๐-๐จ๐ซ-๐๐ซ๐๐๐ค ๐๐๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ . ๐ฅ
Everyone talks about model architecture and data quality. And yes, those matter immensely. But here's what nobody tells you: when your training run fails at 2 AM because of mysterious ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ซ๐ซ๐จ๐ซ๐ฌ, or when your expensive GPU cluster is running at ๐๐% ๐๐๐๐ข๐๐ข๐๐ง๐๐ฒ, the problem isn't your model. It's most probably a ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ก๐๐ซ๐๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐. ๐ ๏ธ
Questions that seemed simple but had no clear answers: Why is ๐๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฌ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฐ๐๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ง ๐๐๐ง๐ฌ๐ ๐ฆ๐จ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฌ? Which ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ฌ should we actually set? How often should we checkpoint without killing throughput?
That's why we built ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฆ๐จ๐ฅ ๐๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฒ๐๐จ๐จ๐ค ๐: a complete guide covering everything from model architecture and data curation to the SmolLM3 training marathon, post-training techniques, and crucially, the ๐ข๐ง๐๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ฎ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ฒ๐๐ซ that most teams get wrong.
We validated real vs theoretical bandwidth across the entire stack: ๐๐๐๐ ๐ก๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ, ๐๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ค ๐.๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ญ ๐๐.๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ. Then we ran collective operations across ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ฌ (16 nodes, 8xH100s each) and measured how performance degrades at scale: all-reduce drops from ๐๐๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ on a single node to ๐๐๐-๐๐๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ across 16 nodes.
If you've ever wondered why your training runs are slower than they should be, or you're planning to scale up and want to avoid expensive mistakes, this guide might save you weeks of debugging.
๐ค๏ธ Experiment Tracker : check out the training on our TrackioApp Tonic/l-android-control
๐ฎ Live Model Demo: Upload an Android Screenshot and instructions to see the model in action ! Tonic/l-operator-demo
Built in a garage, funded by pre-orders, no VC. Now weโre scaling to 1 k installer units.
Weโre giving 50 limited-edition prototypes to investors , installers & researchers who want to co-design the sovereign smart home.
๐ Drop โEUSKERAโ in the comments if you want an invite, tag a friend who still thinks Alexa is โconvenient,โ and smash โฅ๏ธ if AI should belong to people - not servers.
Just wanted to annouce ๐ญSmolFactory : it's the quickest and best way to finetune SmolLM3 and GPT-OSS-20B on huggingface !
Basicaly it's an app you can run on huggingface by duplicating the space and running your training directly on huggingface GPUs .
It will help you basically select datasets and models, fine tune your model , make an experiment tracker you can use on your mobile phone , push all your model card and even automatically make a demo for you on huggingface so you can directly test it out when it's done !
Are you sure the open-source LLM model you just downloaded is safe?
A recent paper on "Privacy Backdoors" reports a new vulnerability where pre-trained models can be poisoned before fine-tuning them. This is a serious challenge for everyone building on open-source AI.
Instead of just pointing out problems, we believe in finding better solutions. To understand this threat, the researchers needed to test their attack on realistic data structures. They needed a dataset that could effectively simulate a high-stakes privacy attack, and we're proud that our Ai4Privacy dataset was used to provide this crucial benchmark. The paper reports that for our complex dataset, the privacy leakage on a non-poisoned model was almost zero. After the backdoor attack, that number reportedly jumped to 87%.
Ai4Privacy dataset provided a realistic benchmark for their research. Our dataset, composed of synthetic identities, helped them demonstrate how a poisoned model could dramatically amplify privacy leakage.
This is why we champion open source: it enables the community to identify these issues and develop better, safer solutions together.
Kudos to the research team behind this study: Yuxin Wen, Leo Marchyok, Sanghyun Hong, Jonas Geiping, Tom Goldstein, and Nicholas Carlini, Oregon State University, University of Maryland, Google DeepMind, and ELLIS Institute Tubingen & MPI Intelligent Systems.
When anonymizing data for LLMs, is replacing a name with XXXXX enough?
A great post by Franklin Cardenoso Fernandez argues that we can do better. While simple masking hides data, it often destroys the context that models need to perform well.
A more robust method is contextual anonymization, where PII is replaced with meaningful labels like [NAME] or [ADDRESS]. This protects privacy while preserving the data's structural integrity.
We were pleased to see our Ai4Privacy pii-masking-200k dataset featured in the article as a prime example of this best practice. Our dataset is designed to help developers implement this superior form of anonymization by providing tens of thousands of clear, labeled examples.
By enabling models to be trained on data that is both private and context-rich, we can build AI that is both smarter and safer. This is a core part of our mission.
What's your team's preferred method for data anonymization? Let's discuss best practices.
๐ก๏ธ At Ai4Privacy, our goal is to empower researchers to build a safer AI ecosystem. Today, we're highlighting crucial research that does just that by exposing a new vulnerability.
The paper "Forget to Flourish" details a new model poisoning technique. It's a reminder that as we fine-tune LLMs, our anonymization and privacy strategies must evolve to counter increasingly sophisticated threats.
We're proud that the Ai4Privacy dataset was instrumental in this study. It served two key purposes:
Provided a Realistic Testbed: It gave the researchers access to a diverse set of synthetic and realistic PII samples in a safe, controlled environment.
Enabled Impactful Benchmarking: It allowed them to measure the actual effectiveness of their data extraction attack, proving it could compromise specific, high-value information.
This work reinforces our belief that progress in AI security is a community effort. By providing robust tools for benchmarking, we can collectively identify weaknesses and build stronger, more resilient systems. A huge congratulations to the authors on this important contribution.
just submitted my plugin idea to the G-Assist Plugin Hackathon by @nvidia . Check it out, it's a great way to use a local SLA model on a windows machine to easily and locally get things done ! https://github.com/NVIDIA/G-Assist
In data privacy, 92% accuracy is not an A-grade. Privacy AI needs to be better.
That's the stark takeaway from a recent benchmark by Diego Mouriรฑo
(Making Science), who put today's top PII detection methods to the test on call center transcripts using the Ai4Privacy dataset.
They pitted cutting-edge LLMs (like GPT-4 & Gemini) against traditional systems (like Cloud DLPs). The results show that our trust in these tools might be misplaced.
๐ The Hard Numbers:
Even top-tier LLMs peaked at a reported 92% accuracy, leaving a potential dangerous 8% gap where your customer's data can leak. They particularly struggled with basics like 'last names' and 'street addresses'.
The old guard? Traditional rule-based systems reportedly achieved a shocking 50% accuracy. A coin toss with your customers' privacy.
This tells us that for privacy tasks, off-the-shelf accuracy is a vanity metric. The real metric is the cost of a single failureโone leaked name, one exposed address.
While no tool is perfect, some are better than others. Diegoโs full analysis breaks down which models offer the best cost-to-accuracy balance in this flawed landscape. It's a must-read for anyone serious about building trustworthy AI.
So every bio/med/chem meeting i go to i always the same questions "why are you sharing a gdrive link with me for this?" and "Do you have any plans to publish your model weights and datasets on huggingface?" and finally i got a good answer today which explains everything :
basically there is some kind of government censorship on this (usa, but i'm sure others too) and they are told they are not allowed as it is considered a "dataleak" which is illegal !!!!
this is terrible ! but the good news is that we can do something about it !