EleutherAI explained

EleutherAI
Company Type:Research co-operative
Founded:[1]
Industry:Artificial intelligence
Products:GPT-Neo, GPT-J, GPT-NeoX, Pythia, The Pile, VQGAN-CLIP
Website:eleuther.ai

EleutherAI ([2]) is a grass-roots non-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research group. The group, considered an open-source version of OpenAI,[3] was formed in a Discord server in 2020 to create an open-source version of GPT-3.[4] In early 2023, it formally incorporated as the EleutherAI Institute, a non-profit research institute.[5] As of 2025, the nonprofit maintains widely-used training datasets, conducts research, and is involved in public policy, among other activities.

History

EleutherAI began as a Discord server on July 7, 2020, under the tentative name "LibreAI" before rebranding to "EleutherAI" later that month,[6] in reference to eleutheria, the Greek word for liberty. Its founding members are Connor Leahy, Leo Gao, and Sid Black. They co-wrote the code for EleutherAI to serve as a collection of open source AI research, creating a machine learning model similar to GPT-3.

On December 31, 2020, EleutherAI released The Pile, a curated dataset of diverse text for training large language models. While the paper referenced the existence of the GPT-Neo models, the models themselves were not released until March 21, 2021.[7] On June 9, 2021, EleutherAI followed this up with GPT-J-6B, a six billion parameter language model that was again the largest open-source GPT-3-like model in the world.[8] These language models were released under the Apache 2.0 free software license and are considered to have "fueled an entirely new wave of startups".

While EleutherAI initially turned down funding offers, preferring to use Google's TPU Research Cloud Program to source their compute, by early 2021 they had accepted funding from CoreWeave (a small cloud computing company) and SpellML (a cloud infrastructure company) in the form of access to powerful GPU clusters that are necessary for large scale machine learning research. On Feb 10, 2022, they released GPT-NeoX-20B, a model similar to their prior work but scaled up thanks to the resources CoreWeave provided.[9]

In early 2023, EleutherAI incorporated as a non-profit research institute run by Stella Biderman, Curtis Huebner, and Shivanshu Purohit. EleutherAI also announced a shift towards doing work in interpretability, alignment, and scientific research.[10] EleutherAI felt that "there is substantially more interest in training and releasing LLMs than there once was", enabling them to focus on other projects.[11]

In July 2024, an investigation by Proof news found that EleutherAI's The Pile dataset includes subtitles from over 170,000 YouTube videos across more than 48,000 channels. The findings drew criticism and accusations of theft from YouTubers and others who had their work published on the platform.[12]

In 2025, EleutherAI released a new dataset for training AI, "Common Pile", that does not have the controversial copyrighted material contained in its previous release of The Pile, and trained two models from it.[13] EleutherAI, in collaboration with the UK's AI Security Institute, found that filtering the training data to remove key concepts can maintain performance while reducing the ability to provide harmful information.[14] [15]

Research

EleutherAI works with hundreds of volunteer researchers.[16]

The Pile

See main article: The Pile (dataset). The Pile is an 886 GB dataset designed for training large language models. It was originally developed to train EleutherAI's GPT-Neo models[17] but has become widely used to train other models, including Microsoft's Megatron-Turing Natural Language Generation.[18] Compared to other datasets, the Pile's main distinguishing features are that it is a curated selection of data chosen by researchers at EleutherAI to contain information they thought language models should learn and that it is the only such dataset that is thoroughly documented by the researchers who developed it.[19] The initial Pile dataset has come under scrutiny for containing copyrighted material including books[20] [21] [22] and subtitles from documentaries, movies, television and online videos[23] including from YouTube.[24]

Common Pile

Common Pile v0.1, released in partnership with a large number of collaborators in June 2025, contains only works where the licenses permit their use for training AI models.[25]

GPT models

EleutherAI's most prominent research relates to its work to train open-source large language models inspired by OpenAI's GPT-3. EleutherAI's "GPT-Neo" model series has released 125 million, 1.3 billion, 2.7 billion, 6 billion, and 20 billion parameter models.

VQGAN-CLIP

Following the release of DALL-E by OpenAI in January 2021, EleutherAI started working on text-to-image synthesis models. When OpenAI did not release DALL-E publicly, EleutherAI's Katherine Crowson and digital artist Ryan Murdock developed a technique for using CLIP (another model developed by OpenAI) to convert regular image generation models into text-to-image synthesis ones.[27] [28] [29] [30] Building on ideas dating back to Google's DeepDream,[31] they found their first major success combining CLIP with another publicly available model called VQGAN and the resulting model is called VQGAN-CLIP.[32] Crowson released the technology by tweeting notebooks demonstrating the technique that people could run for free without any special equipment.[33] [34] [35]

See also

Notes and References

  1. News: What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been: EleutherAI One Year Retrospective . Leahy . Connor . Hallahan . Eric . Gao . Leo . Biderman . Stella . 2021-07-07 . 1 March 2023 . 29 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230829225353/https://blog.eleuther.ai/year-one/ . live .
  2. Web site: 2021-04-02 . Talk with Stella Biderman on The Pile, GPT-Neo and MTG . 2023-03-26 . The Interference Podcast.
  3. Web site: Smith . Craig . 2022-03-21 . EleutherAI: When OpenAI Isn't Open Enough . 2023-08-08 . IEEE Spectrum . . 29 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230829225345/https://spectrum.ieee.org/eleutherai-openai-not-open-enough . live .
  4. Web site: Herschander . Sara . 2025-02-11 . How Philanthropy Built, Lost, and Could Reclaim the A.I. Race . 2025-12-10 . Chronicle of Philanthropy . en-US . Contributor.
  5. Web site: Wiggers . Kyle . 2023-03-02 . Stability AI, Hugging Face and Canva back new AI research nonprofit . 2023-08-08 . TechCrunch . en-US . 29 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230829225347/https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/02/stability-ai-hugging-face-and-canva-back-new-ai-research-nonprofit/ . live .
  6. Web site: Leahy . Connor . Hallahan . Eric . Gao . Leo . Biderman . Stella . 2021-07-07 . What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been: EleutherAI One Year Retrospective . 2023-04-14 . EleutherAI Blog . en . 29 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230829225353/https://blog.eleuther.ai/year-one/ . live .
  7. Web site: 2021-05-15 . GPT-3's free alternative GPT-Neo is something to be excited about . 2023-04-14 . VentureBeat . en-US . 9 March 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230309012717/https://venturebeat.com/ai/gpt-3s-free-alternative-gpt-neo-is-something-to-be-excited-about/ . live . Iyer. Abhishek. Blog post.
  8. Web site: October 14, 2021 . GPT-J-6B: An Introduction to the Largest Open Source GPT Model . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20230309205439/https://www.forefront.ai/blog-posts/gpt-j-6b-an-introduction-to-the-largest-open-sourced-gpt-model . 9 March 2023 . 2023-03-01 . Forefront.ai.
  9. News: March 28, 2022 . Ukraine uses Clearview AI to identify Russian dead . http://web.archive.org/web/20250908005613/https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/28/in_brief_ai/ . 2025-09-08 . 2025-12-10 . The Register . en.
  10. Web site: 2 March 2023 . The View from 30,000 Feet: Preface to the Second EleutherAI Retrospective . Eleuther AI Blog.
  11. Web site: March 7, 2023 . AI Research Lab Launches Open Source Research Nonprofit . The NonProfit Times.
  12. Annie . Gilbertson . Alex . Reisner . Apple, Nvidia, Anthropic Used Thousands of Swiped YouTube Videos to Train AI . WIRED . 2024-07-16 . 2024-07-18 .
  13. Web site: Wiggers . Kyle . 2025-06-06 . EleutherAI releases massive AI training dataset of licensed and open domain text . 2025-12-10 . TechCrunch . en-US.
  14. News: Goldman . Sharon . AI safety tip: if you don’t want it giving bioweapon instructions, maybe don’t put them in the training data, say researchers . Fortune . en.
  15. News: Tiku . Nitasha . Analysis AI systems ‘ignorant’ of sensitive data can be safer, but still smart . The Washington Post . 12 August 2025.
  16. Web site: Herschander . Sara . 2025-02-11 . How Philanthropy Built, Lost, and Could Reclaim the A.I. Race . 2025-12-10 . Chronicle of Philanthropy . en-US . Contributor.
  17. News: Knight . Will . March 29, 2021 . This AI Can Generate Convincing Text—and Anyone Can Use It . 2025-12-10 . Wired . en-US . 1059-1028.
  18. Web site: Wiggers . Kyle . 11 October 2021 . Microsoft and Nvidia team up to train one of the world's largest language models . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230327211519/https://venturebeat.com/ai/microsoft-and-nvidia-team-up-to-train-one-of-the-worlds-largest-language-models/ . 27 March 2023 . 8 March 2023 . VentureBeat.
  19. Khan . Mehtab . Hanna . Alex . 2023 . The Subjects and Stages of AI Dataset Development: A Framework for Dataset Accountability . Ohio State Technology Law Journal . 19 . 2 . 171–256 . 1811/103549 . 4217148 . free.
  20. Web site: Roth . Emma . 2024-08-20 . Authors sue Anthropic for training AI using pirated books . 2025-12-10 . The Verge . en-US.
  21. Knibbs . Kate . September 4, 2023 . The Battle Over Books3 Could Change AI Forever . 13 October 2023 . WIRED.
  22. Web site: Barr . Kyle . 2023-08-18 . Anti-Piracy Group Takes Massive AI Training Dataset 'Books3′ Offline . 2025-12-10 . Gizmodo . en-US.
  23. News: Deck . Andrew . January 7, 2025 . Thousands of documentaries are fueling AI models built by Apple, Meta, and Nvidia . http://web.archive.org/web/20250701150709/https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/thousands-of-documentaries-are-fueling-ai-models-built-by-apple-meta-and-nvidia/ . 2025-07-01 . 2025-12-10 . Nieman Lab.
  24. Web site: Sato . Mia . 2024-07-16 . Apple, Anthropic, and other companies used YouTube videos to train AI . 2025-12-10 . The Verge . en-US.
  25. News: Tiku . Nitasha . 2025-06-05 . Analysis AI firms say they can’t respect copyright. These researchers tried. . http://web.archive.org/web/20250725105511/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/05/tech-brief-ai-copyright-report/ . 2025-07-25 . 2026-01-29 . The Washington Post . en.
  26. Preprint . Andonian . Alex . Biderman . Stella . Black . Sid . Gali . Preetham . Gao . Leo . Hallahan . Eric . Levy-Kramer . Josh . Leahy . Connor . Nestler . Lucas . Parker . Kip . Pieler . Michael . Purohit . Shivanshu . Songz . Tri . Phil . Wang . Weinbach . Samuel . GPT-NeoX: Large Scale Autoregressive Language Modeling in PyTorch . 10 March 2023 . 10.5281/zenodo.5879544 .
  27. Web site: The Illustrated VQGAN. LJ. MIRANDA. ljvmiranda921.github.io. 8 August 2021 . 8 March 2023. 20 March 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230320163030/https://ljvmiranda921.github.io/notebook/2021/08/08/clip-vqgan/. live.
  28. Web site: Inside The World of Uncanny AI Twitter Art. Nylon. 24 March 2022 . 8 March 2023. 29 August 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230829225921/https://www.nylon.com/life/images-ai-art-twitter-machine-learning. live.
  29. Web site: This AI Turns Movie Text Descriptions Into Abstract Posters. Yahoo Life. 20 September 2021 . 8 March 2023. 27 December 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221227171626/https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ai-turns-movie-text-descriptions-152546287.html. live.
  30. Web site: Quach . Katyanna . August 22, 2021 . A man spent a year in jail on a murder charge involving disputed AI evidence. Now the case has been dropped . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230308173730/https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/22/in_brief_ai/ . 8 March 2023 . 8 March 2023 . www.theregister.com.
  31. Web site: Alien Dreams: An Emerging Art Scene - ML@B Blog. Alien Dreams: An Emerging Art Scene - ML@B Blog. 8 March 2023. 10 March 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230310061548/https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/posts/clip-art/. live.
  32. Web site: VQGAN-CLIP . 2023-08-20 . EleutherAI . en-GB . 20 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230820072140/https://www.eleuther.ai/artifacts/vqgan-clip . live .
  33. News: We asked an AI tool to 'paint' images of Australia. Critics say they're good enough to sell. ABC News . 14 July 2021. 8 March 2023. www.abc.net.au. 7 March 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230307043918/https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-07-15/ai-art-tool-makes-paintings-of-australia/100288386. live.
  34. Web site: Online tools to create mind-blowing AI art. Poornima. Nataraj. 28 February 2022. Analytics India Magazine. 8 March 2023. 8 February 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230208012723/https://analyticsindiamag.com/online-tools-to-create-mind-blowing-ai-art/. live.
  35. Web site: Meet the Woman Making Viral Portraits of Mental Health on TikTok. Vice.com. 30 November 2021 . 8 March 2023. 11 May 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230511151259/https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbb3w/woman-making-viral-portraits-of-mental-health-on-tiktok. live.

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