Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has announced the release of a commercial version of its open-source artificial intelligence model, Llama. This move provides startups and businesses with a cost-effective alternative to expensive proprietary models offered by companies like OpenAI and Google.
The new iteration, Llama 2, will be distributed through Microsoft's Azure cloud service and will be compatible with the Windows operating system. In a blog post, Meta referred to Microsoft as their “preferred partner” for this release. Additionally, Llama 2 will be available for direct download and through various providers such as Amazon Web Services and Hugging Face.
Previously, Meta only granted access to Llama to select academics for research purposes. However, the company now aims to make this sophisticated model widely accessible, free of charge, for businesses to leverage. This move threatens to disrupt the current market dominated by generative AI software providers like OpenAI, which is supported by Microsoft and already offers its models to Azure customers.
Llama was already competitive with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard chatbot models. The latest version, Llama 2, has undergone training with 40% more data than its predecessor. Moreover, over one million human annotations have fine-tuned the quality of its outputs, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Amjad Masad, CEO of software developer platform Replit, believes that the introduction of commercial Llama could significantly impact the market. He states that any incremental improvement in open-source models poses a threat to closed-source models as they can be run inexpensively with fewer dependencies.
This announcement aligns with the plans of Microsoft's cloud competitors, Google and Amazon, who intend to offer a range of AI models to their business customers. Amazon, for instance, is marketing access to Anthropic's AI model Claude alongside its own Titan models. Similarly, Google plans to make Claude and other models available to its cloud customers.
Microsoft's decision to support Llama, despite its potential impact on OpenAI's value, is driven by a desire to provide developers with a choice of models. The aim is to solidify Microsoft's position as the go-to cloud platform for AI work.
Meta hopes that fostering an open-source ecosystem of AI technology built on its models will hinder rivals' revenue plans based on proprietary technology. The leaked internal memo from Google, titled “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI,” predicted such a scenario.
Meta also anticipates benefiting from advancements, bug fixes, and product development resulting from its model becoming the default choice for AI innovation. This strategy aligns with Meta's approach as a social media company, where reducing infrastructure costs and maximizing the creation of consumer-facing tools is more advantageous than charging for model access.
While releasing Llama into the public domain offers numerous benefits, it also carries risks. The ease with which unscrupulous actors can now develop products without adequate safety controls is a concern. However, Meta executives argue that public releases of technology actually enhance safety by leveraging collective wisdom to identify issues and build resilient systems.
To address potential misuse, Meta has implemented an “acceptable use” policy for commercial Llama, explicitly prohibiting certain use cases involving violence, terrorism, child exploitation, and other criminal activities.
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