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Comment by amelius

3 hours ago

I don't understand. If you have a model that can do bash examples already (your subagents), then why would you need to train a model?

Or are the subagents generating your training data using a closed/paid model?

A very small, highly specialized model can use negligible resources (CPU, energy) to accomplish the same task.

For everyday work that happens frequently it's better to have a tiny specialized model instead of making billable API calls or turning your laptop into an 80W space heater for 20 seconds to run a general purpose model.

The large models can be used to generate synthetic training data. Tell them to make up 100,000 tasks paired with the resulting output as a 1-time cost. Then use that to train a small model.

Think of it as distillation, but focused on a specific task.

  • Given that they're just using it to avoid the googling for bash command syntax, I'm not sure they'll save in the end against the 140k training examples they generated.

    • you can probably generate quite a few example pairs in a single shot, you also likely don't need the best models for this either

  • This is so cool - I'm aware of this in a vague way. Can you write a little tutorial or give some good links. I want this to be the next new things I do :)

The models he is using to generate training data are presumably commercial models. He is distilling their bash knowledge into a much smaller model he can run locally fast and cheap.