Most of the tech giants are aiming to commercialize artificial intelligence (AI). Mark Zuckerberg is taking a different path. His Meta has just unveiled the latest version of its large language model called Llama 3.1. It is made available for free and marks a significant shift in the AI landscape.
The exact cost of developing Llama 3.1 has not been disclosed, but Zuckerberg recently mentioned to investors that the company is spending billions on AI development. The free release is a challenge to the industry norm and simultaneously places Meta at the center of an ongoing debate with respect to the risks and benefits of making advanced AI accessible.
Llama 3.1 is designed to prevent harmful output by default. However, it can also be modified to remove the safeguards. Meta claims that Llama 3.1 rivals the best commercial offerings from companies like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.
Stanford University associate professor Percy Liang expressed excitement over the new capabilities of the new model. If developers find Llama 3.1 comparatively effective, it could prompt a significant migration towards Meta’s offering.
Zuckerberg likened Llama to Linux in an open letter. He predicted that AI development might follow a similar journey. Open-source models gradually close the gap with their proprietary counterparts. However, the decision of Meta to release Llama 3.1 is not entirely altruistic. Previous versions of it have bolstered Meta’s influence among AI researchers, developers and startups.
The new Llama model boasts 405 billion parameters. It is a significant increase in complexity and capability. Meta also released upgraded versions of its smaller models with 70 billion and 8 billion parameters, respectively. The models are too large to run on standard computers.