Title: Discussion 9 — Why This Model Layer?
Course: AIINFRA 303: Capstone Project > Section: Week 09 — The Model Layer: Serving, Adaptation, or RAG Integration

💬 Discussion 9 — Why This Model Layer? (20 pts)

Every capstone team faces the same fork in the road: serve an open model as-is, adapt it with fine-tuning, or ground it with RAG. In 250–400 words, explain which of the three you chose for your capstone project's model layer — and, just as importantly, why you rejected the other two. Address in your post:

- What specific problem in your capstone does this choice solve (missing knowledge, wrong behavior/format, cost/latency, control over infrastructure)?
- Why wouldn't one of the other two approaches solve that same problem as well, or as cheaply?
- What tradeoff are you accepting by making this choice (e.g., RAG's dependency on retrieval quality, LoRA's need for good training examples, self-hosted serving's operational overhead)?

Post your initial response, then respond to at least two classmates — ideally classmates who chose a different track than you — and challenge or stress-test their reasoning with a specific scenario from their project.