Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has introduced its own artificial intelligence system known as LLaMA 2, which aims to rival existing models like Google’s Bard and ChatGPT. However, what sets Meta’s approach apart is that it is making LLaMA 2 available for free. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the partnership with Microsoft, stating that the next generation of their AI language model will be accessible for both research and commercial use. This move follows a trend in the tech industry, with companies like Google and Microsoft investing heavily in AI research and development.
Meta has a long-standing research team that focuses on advancing AI technology but has often been overshadowed by the success of competitors’ generative AI tools. The release of ChatGPT, in particular, triggered a rush to profit from these tools’ capabilities to create new media, including prose and images. However, Meta aims to stand out by being more open than its counterparts, offering transparency in terms of the data and code it uses to build AI systems. By doing so, Meta believes that outside researchers can contribute to identifying and mitigating bias and toxicity that AI systems may unintentionally absorb from real human communication.
Zuckerberg highlighted Meta’s commitment to openness and innovation, referring to the company’s previous open-sourcing of AI work, such as the development of the widely used machine-learning framework PyTorch. The new AI models developed by Meta can be downloaded directly or accessed through Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure. In addition to Microsoft, the models will also be available through Amazon Web Services, Hugging Face, and other partners. The financial details of Meta’s partnership with Microsoft have not been disclosed.
While Microsoft is described as a preferred partner by Meta, it’s worth noting that Microsoft is also a significant funder and partner of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Unlike Meta, both Microsoft and Google have not open-sourced their similar AI offerings. This collaboration between Meta and Microsoft was revealed during Microsoft’s event for business customers, and the two companies share a shared commitment to democratizing AI and its benefits.
In conclusion, Meta’s introduction of the LLaMA 2 AI system as a free resource for research and commercial use marks a significant move in the field of artificial intelligence. By making their technology openly available, Meta aims to foster innovation, improve safety and security, and empower more developers to build with this new technology.
