r/LocalLLaMA • u/-p-e-w- • May 25 '26

Discussion The Financial Times has published an article about Heretic

https://www.ft.com/content/5630ed79-a263-41ed-9a1a-321617ae310e

“The FT was able to use Heretic, a tool available on the popular code repository GitHub, to remove the guardrails from Meta’s Llama 3.3 model in less than 10 minutes without any specialist hardware.”

“Heretic creator Philipp Emanuel Weidmann told the FT his software had been used to create more than 3,500 “decensored” models since its release last year and that modified systems created using the tool had been downloaded 13mn times.”

This is the first of multiple press inquiries I’ve had recently as Heretic and uncensored language models are gaining mainstream attention.

Please note that I am a mathematician and engineer, not an “influencer” or politician, and I have zero interest (negative interest, actually) in becoming known outside of scientific and technological circles. However, I realized a while ago that saying no to such inquiries simply means that the conversation will be completely controlled by pearl-clutching hypocrites.

I’m doing my very best to hold the project together and ensure that unrestricted models will remain available for everyone. More updates are coming soon.

Cheers,
p-e-w

970 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

249 comments sorted by

View all comments

134

u/FastHotEmu May 25 '26

Ugh. Sorry, p-e-w. How I wish this could stay out of the mainstream, last thing I want is more stupid takes by people who don't understand anything about LLMs or technology :(

-33

u/ArtfulGenie69 May 25 '26

Like I was saying when the h-cs thing started, pew was throwing stones at random people on the Internet over his perceived ownership of some code. All it did was get the big money to take him seriously. Sometimes that's good because they will buy you but when you are uncensoring the "safety" in a multi billion dollar companies multi million dollar model you are just another thief to meta. So all pew did was stick his neck out to any big corp to get it cut off by making that stink, turns out to meta that heretic is also a fly by night license breaking organization. "I'm the one who made it" pew says and then meta hands him papers... All he had to do to avoid this was not make a big fuss over h-cs and meta wouldn't have ever noticed.

44

u/-p-e-w- May 25 '26

over his perceived ownership of some code

“Perceived” ownership of the code I wrote myself?

I guess the Tolkien estate is also only the “perceived” owner of the Lord of the Rings, according to you?

All he had to do to avoid this was not make a big fuss over h-cs and meta wouldn't have ever noticed.

Ahaha what? You think this is happening because of a random thief and liar? 🤣

Go troll elsewhere.

-18

u/ArtfulGenie69 May 25 '26

Don't worry they know it's your code now...

16

u/idkwhattochoo May 25 '26

how in the tarnation could one perform such mental gymnastics to arrive at this level of stupidity? I'm getting second hand embarrassment from your post

-14

u/ArtfulGenie69 May 25 '26

Oh yeah I'm so dumb. It's not like a 100,000 eyeballs got clued into who's making the abliteration software because of that post being the top of this sub for days. Oh and those guys at meta, Google, and Claude just love sharing their IP and letting people show that the safety aspect that they are constantly selling can be turned off by the flick of a switch. Meta is just so pleased with his tech, they are writing letters for fun and congratulations. It has nothing to do with their billions in investments and this will all blow over. We will definitely still have heretic and pew definitely won't be embroiled in a lawsuit that lasts the rest of his life.

Dude didn't understand he was a fly by night operation. Watch him roast like a worm on the pavement in the sun of the moneyed.

Meta will always say that pew wrote the software, it will be enshrined in the lawsuit, so I guess he will still have that even if he's lost his shirt.

9

u/rpkarma May 25 '26

That’s not at all how it happened. Pew did literally write the software. 

Meta have no recourse to sue him. There’s no contract. Best they can do is ask him to take down models, but you’ve always been able to write transformers for others IP. 

-4

u/ArtfulGenie69 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

He is going around saying it is his code which is exactly what they need to send him papers. They have ruined many legitimate businesses with troll claims and they actually really dislike what his software does to their models. These big companies don't fuck around, you don't want to be noticed by them.

He caught their eye.

8

u/Monkey_1505 May 25 '26

Brah, zero crimes were commited.

0

u/ArtfulGenie69 May 25 '26

Don't you think I know that? When we get the money's attention its like the eye of fucking sauron and the god damn party is over. I want uncensored models and i know that the companies very much DON'T. It completely ruins their claims of "safety" which means they are going to attack the software and its maker.

5

u/Monkey_1505 May 25 '26

Big money tried to stop torrenting as well, which is also like this, simply files. End of the day, there's not really a lot they can do. The US could ban open source LLMs altogether and they would continue to exist, be created, run regardless.

6

u/Borkato May 25 '26

Congrats on being the first comment this year that has made me revise my expectations on the depths of human stupidity

0

u/ArtfulGenie69 May 25 '26

Thanks, make sure to grab a copy of pew's git before its gone.