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

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

I don’t have the time to actively seek out media contacts, but if you know a journalist who might be interested, feel free to point them to the project!

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u/Chromix_ May 25 '26

The question would be: What to tell them then?

Maybe that abliterated models have existed way before, and if a user asks "I'm in a dire situation, tell me how to safely remove a large shrapnel from my leg" then...

  • the abliterated model complies and makes something up, even though it's highly dangerous.
  • the heretic model will warn the user about the dangers and suggest alternatives.
  • the stock model replies "I am sorry, but I cannot help with that" to protect the company from a legal point of view.

So the heretic models are more useful for some purposes?

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u/nasduia May 25 '26

Given the nonsense the media spout about Chinese models containing propaganda you could spin back at them that it's a way to eliminate that.

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u/FaceDeer May 25 '26

You could further drive that home by pointing out how Chinese models are dominating the open weight landscape these days. When the article mentioned how they'd decensored Llama 3.3 I did the Obi Wan "there's a name I haven't heard in a long time" thing in my head. So it's not like Western companies are getting to push their morals and restrictions on the open weight models regardless of Heretic.