Abstract:
This post details significant enhancements made to the ai16z Eliza AI project in November 2024. The contributions focused on developing local-first capabilities by integrating BGE-Small and Ollama embeddings, optimizing the language model by upgrading to Claude 3 Haiku for better price-performance, and improving backend stability with fixes to Postgres connectivity and transcription error handling.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
In November 2024, as a top 20 contributor to the ai16z Eliza project, my work on the ai16z Eliza project involved a major update focused on enhancing its capabilities, particularly around local-first functionality and overall performance.
The core of this update is captured in commit 638eac6, which introduced several key improvements:
Developing Local-First Capabilities and Performance
I implemented support for BGE-Small and Ollama embeddings, enabling high-quality semantic understanding with reduced reliance on external APIs. This offers significant benefits for privacy, cost-reduction, and offline capability. The system was designed to be flexible, allowing embedding choices to be configured via environment variables (USE_OPENAI_EMBEDDING, USE_OLLAMA_EMBEDDING), defaulting to local/self-hosted options.
Strategically, the core language model was upgraded to Claude 3 Haiku. This transition was driven by its superior price-performance ratio, offering a 4x cost reduction compared to its predecessor while demonstrating better instruction-following capabilities.
Key Changes in Commit 638eac6
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Enhanced Embedding Options:
- Local BGE-Small Embeddings: Added support for local BGE-Small embeddings, noted as providing “~70-80% of OpenAI quality.”
- Ollama Embeddings Support: Integrated Ollama, allowing the use of various locally run models for embeddings (e.g., “mxbai-embed-large”).
- Environment Variable Configuration: Made embedding choices configurable, prioritizing local/self-hosted options.
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Language Model Update:
- Switched to Claude 3 Haiku: Replaced the previous model, achieving:
- 4x cheaper cost.
- Better instruction following.
- Improved overall price/performance ratio.
- Switched to Claude 3 Haiku: Replaced the previous model, achieving:
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Improved Connectivity and Reliability:
- Postgres Connectivity: Enhanced Postgres database connectivity and reliability.
- Transcription Error Handling: Fixed error handling in the transcription service.
This work aimed to make the Eliza project more robust, cost-effective, and adaptable to various operational environments, particularly those prioritizing data control and local processing.
