Stop hyping Big AI: Smaller, smarter models the future

The Big Artificial Intelligence (AI) hype machine is running in overdrive.

- Vivek Wadhwa

The US and China keep unveiling “revolutionary” new models that supposedly think like humans. Each one is bigger, costlier, and noisier than the last, while burning enough electricity to light a city. The machines keep growing, but the progress keeps shrinking.

India has become a casualty of the hype, dazzled by OpenAT's trillion-dollar dreams. Every policy discussion now seems to revolve around building an Indian ChatGPT. The reflex is to spend, as if leadership in AI can be bought with chips and data centres. It simply can't.

The reality is that progress will come from solving real problems, not from joining the race to build the next giant model. The AI transforming business today has little to do with Silicon Valley's fantasies. The real breakthroughs are coming from smaller, simpler systems that ana-lyse data, spot patterns, and deliver results.

The fact is that large language models (LLMs) that are driving this global race have become the bonfires of modern computing. They consume vast amounts of hardware, energy, and money to produce sentences that sound good but are often gibberish. They hallucinate, hide their reasoning, and make disastrous mistakes.

Companies that actually use Al, instead of announcing it in press releases, already understand this. They are moving to fine-tuned, open-source models that do specific jobs and run on everyday hardware for a fraction of the cost.