Set up your notebook. You will need it at the end of class.
Copy these. Leave space under each one for a definition.
- program
- runtime
- operating system
Think about these. Nothing to write.
- When you open a photo, something opens it. Do you know what?
- Have you ever had a file your device could not open?
- Who wrote the app you use most? Do you know anything about them?
Copy this into your Lab Notebook and leave room under it. You will answer it at the end of class.
What actually opens the file and makes it run?
The words, in plain terms
Yesterday was the parts. Today is the software that sits on them. Still not the AI part.
Yesterday ended with a file that fits and does nothing.
The arithmetic worked out. Three machines in the world could hold 6.63 gigabytes in the right place, and a Chromebook could not. But even on a machine with room to spare, copying the file over and waiting produces no answers, no output, and no sign that anything has happened at all. Something is missing, and it is not hardware.
Open the file and look at it. Not run it. Open it, the way you would open a text file, and read what is inside.
What comes back is unreadable. Not unreadable in the sense of a foreign language, where the words are words and you simply do not know them. Unreadable in the sense that there are no words. There are numbers, an enormous quantity of them, and nothing that looks like a sentence or a command or an instruction anywhere in the file.
That is worth sitting with, because most people assume software is a set of instructions. And usually it is. A program is a list of steps a machine can carry out: check this, then do that, then show the result. Open a program in a text editor and you can often see the steps, even if you do not understand them. They look like language because they are language.
The model file is not that. It is a record of numbers with no instructions in it whatsoever, which means no machine on earth can simply run it, in the way a machine runs a program. There is nothing to follow.
So something else has to happen. Some piece of actual software, one that is a real program with real instructions in it, has to open the file, read those numbers, and do arithmetic with them. That piece of software is called a runtime, and it is a completely separate thing from the file it opens.
This is the sentence the day is built on. The file is not the software. The software is not the file. They arrive from different places, they are made by different people, and either one can be replaced without touching the other.
In this classroom the runtime has a name and a window you can see. It is called LM Studio, and when the model on the teacher’s machine produces an answer, LM Studio is the thing doing the reading.
But LM Studio is not the whole story. Underneath it sits another piece of software called llama.cpp, which is the part that actually does the work of reading the numbers and running the arithmetic. LM Studio is a window built on top of it. Click a button in LM Studio and llama.cpp is what responds.
Which means there are two different ways to run the identical file. A person can install LM Studio and click, or install llama.cpp on its own and type commands into it instead. Same file, same engine underneath, different amount of software standing between the person and the machine. The file has no opinion about which one a person chooses, because the file does not know either of them exists.
Underneath all of it there is one more layer, and it decides whether any of this is possible at all. Every machine runs an operating system, the software that starts when the power comes on and that lets other software be installed and run. Windows is one. macOS is one. Linux is one.
A Chromebook runs ChromeOS, and this is where the machine fails a third time.
The first failure was storage, and a student could imagine fixing it by deleting things. The second was RAM, and there is nothing to delete that would help. The third is different from both. ChromeOS does not permit software like LM Studio or llama.cpp to be installed on a school-managed device. Not because the file is too large. Not because the machine is too slow. Because the operating system will not allow the runtime to exist there in the first place.
Three failures, three different reasons, and only the first one looks like a number problem.
There is one more thing worth noticing before the period ends, and it has nothing to do with any of these machines.
Somebody made the file and gave it away. Somebody else, entirely unconnected, wrote the software that opens it and gave that away too. A third group built the card the whole thing runs on, for people who wanted to play video games. None of these people know each other. None of them were working on this class.
And the thing still runs.
So when a person says they are running their own AI, what exactly is the part that belongs to them?
B. The file is a record of numbers. There are no steps, no commands, and nothing a machine could follow. That is the whole reason it does nothing on its own, no matter how much room a machine has for it.
Notebook: program. Three lines. Say what makes something a program.
C. A runtime is a real program with real instructions in it, and its job is to read a file that has none. The file and the runtime are two different things made by different people.
Notebook: runtime. Three lines. Say what it does, not what it is called.
A. Windows, macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS are all operating systems. Everything else on a machine runs on top of one, which is why the operating system can decide what is allowed to exist there.
Notebook: operating system. Three lines. Name at least one.
B. LM Studio is a window built on top of llama.cpp. Clicking a button in LM Studio is a way of asking llama.cpp to do something. Both are software, and one is sitting on the other.
B. The file does not know either program exists. That is what it means for the file and the software to be separate things, and it is the reason either one can be replaced without touching the other.
C. The first two failures were about size. This one is not. Even a Chromebook with enormous storage and enormous RAM would still fail, because the operating system will not let the software that opens the file exist there.
D. Storage came first, because free space is something a student can check on their own machine. RAM came second, and it is the failure that deleting things cannot fix. The operating system came third, and it is the only one that is not about a number at all.
D. Deleting fixes storage and leaves RAM untouched. Closing tabs frees a little RAM and does not add any. Neither one touches the operating system. Every route is closed, and for a different reason each time.
C. Somebody made the file. Somebody unconnected wrote the software that opens it. A third group built the card, aiming it at people who play video games. Nothing about the arrangement was coordinated, and it still runs.
B. Two things that can be swapped independently were never one thing. That is what lets a person assemble a working setup out of pieces made by strangers, and it is what the rest of this unit depends on.
Read the picture
Both sides are files. Only one of them is a program.
On the left are instructions: steps a machine can carry out, in order, one after another. You do not have to understand what the program does to see that it is telling something to do something.
On the right is the model file. There are no steps. There is no order. There is nothing to carry out. It is a record of numbers, billions of them, and a machine handed this file has been given no instructions at all.
That is why yesterday ended with a file that fits on three machines and does nothing on any of them. Fitting was never the last problem.
Read the picture
Four layers, each one sitting inside the one above it.
The machine is the hardware. The operating system is the software that starts when the power comes on and decides what else is allowed to run. The runtime is a real program, with real instructions in it, whose whole job is to open a file that has none. The file sits inside the runtime because the runtime is the only thing that can do anything with it.
Take any one layer away and nothing answers. That is worth testing on yourself: pick a layer, remove it, and say what breaks.
Read the picture
Both sides are running the identical file, and both sides are running the identical engine.
llama.cpp is the engine. It is the software that actually reads the numbers and does the arithmetic. On the left, LM Studio sits on top of it as a window, so a person clicks. On the right there is no window, so a person types instead. That is the entire difference.
The file has no opinion about any of this, because the file does not know either program exists. Two things that can be swapped without touching each other were never one thing.
This is the point the rest of the unit rests on. Somebody made the file. Somebody unconnected wrote the engine. A third group built the card, aiming it at people who play video games. None of them know each other, and the thing still runs.
Read the picture
This is the same picture as the software stack, with one box empty. Compare them directly. The machine is the same size, the operating system region is the same size, and the runtime box is in exactly the same place.
What changed is that the box is empty and cannot be filled. ChromeOS does not permit software like LM Studio or llama.cpp to be installed on a school-managed device.
The file has moved outside the machine, because there is nothing in there that could open it.
This is the Chromebook’s third failure and it is different in kind from the other two. The first was storage, and deleting things would fix it. The second was RAM, and nothing you delete would help. This one is not about a number at all. Not too small, not too slow, not allowed.
The words, in plain terms
So what does it take to make the file do something?
Reveal
Real software with real instructions in it. Something has to read the numbers and do arithmetic on them.
Does the file care which one opens it?
Reveal
No. The file does not know either of them exists.
So is it yours?
We are not answering this today either. This one comes back all six days.
Could you fix it by buying more storage?
Reveal
No. Not too small, not too slow, not allowed.
Partner work first. Then quiet work time.
- No cellphones
- No sleeping
- No non-academic use of Chromebooks
- A quiet room and music
- No interruptions from the teacher
- If you are caught up on this course's work, you may work on anything legitimate for another class