The initiative offers start-ups and businesses an affordable chance to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard
Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, is providing a commercial version of its artificial intelligence model for free, enabling startups and businesses to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard at a lower cost.
The new version, known as Llama 2, an iteration of Meta’s large language model (LLM), will be distributed through Microsoft’s Azure cloud service and operate on the Windows operating system. In a blog post, Meta referred to Microsoft as their “preferred partner” for this release. LLMs serve as the foundation for generative AI products like the ChatGPT chatbot. It’s worth noting that the owner of ChatGPT, OpenAI, has not open-sourced or broadly shared its LLM, GPT-4.
The model, previously restricted to select academics for research purposes, will now be accessible for direct download and through various providers such as Amazon Web Services and Hugging Face.
In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg highlighted that open source fosters innovation as it allows numerous developers to work with new technology. He believes that a more open ecosystem would unlock further progress.
However, the issue of open source AI remains divisive, with experts having differing views. Dr. Andrew Rogoyski from the Institute for People-Centred AI at the University of Surrey pointed out that there are competing schools of thought. Some advocate for open-sourcing AI, making it accessible to all and democratizing its use, allowing for independent scrutiny. On the other hand, there are those who argue that AI should be withheld, akin to nuclear secrets, to prevent powerful technology from falling into the wrong hands.
The company has implemented an “acceptable use” policy for commercial Llama, which explicitly prohibits certain use cases, including violence, terrorism, child exploitation, and other criminal activities.
The release of the advanced Llama model for free use by businesses has the potential to disrupt the early dominance in the emerging market of generative AI software, where players like OpenAI, supported by Microsoft, have already offered their models to business customers through Azure.
The original Llama model was already competitive with the technology powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbot. The new Llama has received further training, utilizing 40% more data than its predecessor and over 1 million human annotations to refine the quality of its outputs, as stated by Zuckerberg.
Amjad Masad, the CEO of software developer platform Replit, noted that “Commercial Llama could change the picture” and mentioned that over 80% of their projects currently rely on OpenAI’s models.
The announcement comes in the wake of Google and Amazon, Microsoft’s primary cloud competitors, unveiling plans to offer a variety of AI models to their business customers.
Previously, Microsoft had concentrated on providing technology from OpenAI through Azure.
When questioned about potentially affecting OpenAI’s value, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that offering developers a range of model choices would solidify its position as the leading cloud platform for AI projects.
For Meta, a thriving open-source ecosystem of AI technology built on its models could impede competitors’ efforts to generate revenue from their proprietary technology. The value of such proprietary systems could diminish if developers could access equally potent open-source alternatives at no cost.
Meta is also placing a bet on reaping the rewards of progress, bug fixes, and new products that could emerge when its model becomes the go-to standard for AI innovation, much like what it experienced in recent years with the widely adopted open-source AI framework PyTorch.
In April, Zuckerberg informed investors that, as a social media company, Meta stands to gain more from effectively crowd-sourcing methods to lower infrastructure expenses and enhance the creation of new consumer-oriented tools that could attract users to its ad-supported services, rather than charging for access to its models.
Zuckerberg clarified that unlike certain other companies, their approach does not involve selling a cloud computing service while keeping their proprietary software infrastructure hidden. Instead, they prefer industry standardization on the fundamental tools they employ, enabling them to leverage the advancements made by others.
While making Llama available to a wider audience has its advantages, it also poses risks. It significantly accelerates the ease with which unscrupulous actors may develop products without sufficient consideration for safety controls.
