Meta Unveils Open-Source AI Model Llama 2 With Microsoft

Social media giant Meta has revealed the next generation of its open source LLM Llama 2. It will work with Microsoft to bring the technology to more businesses and researchers.

Meta and Microsoft are collaborating on the new open-source AI model called Llama 2, according to an announcement from Facebook’s parent company. Llama is an open-source large language model, with the new iteration offering improvements and expanded possibilities.

Meta states that the two companies are invested in having an open-source model because it is the right approach, benefiting everyone. The two companies believe that more businesses, individuals, and researchers should have access.

It also added that it would be safer, which is important given that there are heated discussions about the risks and safety of AI technology.

The original Llama model had more than 100,000 requests for access. Llama 2 is a step up from the first. The model is available free of charge for research and commercial use. It will also include model weights and starting code for the pre-trained model and conversational fine-tuned versions.

Microsoft is Meta’s preferred partner for the release, with Llama 2 also available in the Azure AI model catalog. The model is also optimized to run locally on Windows. Additionally, Llama will be available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Hugging Face, and other providers.

AWS Also Offers Llama 2 Foundation Models

In its own announcement, Amazon noted that the Llama 2 foundation models were available in Amazon SageMaker JumpStart. The model can be used for a variety of purposes, such as text generation. The latter is one of the foundation models on offer.

Llama 2 is essentially the same as ChatGPT in that it is a large language model that serves as a chatbot. With Llama 2 being a more advanced model with more training parameters, it should offer more detailed and nuanced responses.

This comes at a time when both Elon Musk’s xAI and Apple are working on related technologies.

Former United Kingdom Deputy Prime Minister and current President of Global Affairs at Meta Nick Clegg recently defended the release of Llama 2. He believes that the hype about the risks of AI was a overblow and getting ahead of itself. The concern is that open-source models could lead to the technology being used for malicious purposes.

Clegg also said that current AI models were “quite stupid” and the concerns were “far short” of the worries that AI could become sentient. Like some others, he believes that existential threats are not arriving in the near future.