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Llama 2 is trained on 40% more public data and can process twice as much context than Llama 1, according to Meta.
Big Tech firms Meta and Microsoft have teamed up to launch Llama 2, an open-source large language model from Meta that will feature on Microsoft’s Windows and cloud computing platform Azure.
The pair announced the collaboration on July 18 saying Llama 2 was made free for research and commercial use while also being optimized to run on Windows.
The announcement confirmed rumors from last week that said Llama 2 would be built for businesses and researchers to create applications on Meta’s AI tech stack.
We believe an open approach is the right one for the development of today's Al models.
— Meta AI (@MetaAI) July 18, 2023
Today, we’re releasing Llama 2, the next generation of Meta’s open source Large Language Model, available for free for research & commercial use.
Details ➡️ https://t.co/vz3yw6cujk pic.twitter.com/j2bDHqiuHL
Meta claimed Llama 2 was trained on 40% more publicly available online data sources and can process twice as much context compared to Llama 1.
The firm said Llama 2 outperforms many competitor open-source LLMs when it comes to coding, proficiency, reasoning and performance on knowledge tests. However, Meta conceded it isn’t quite as efficient compared to its closed-source competitors such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, according to one of its research papers
In a July 18 Instagram post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Llama 2 “gives researchers and businesses access to build with our next generation large language model as the foundation of their work.”
Meta said it was “blown away” by the demand for Llama 1 following the release of its limited version in February, which received over 100,000 requests for access. The model was soon leaked online by a user of the imageboard website 4chan.
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Llama 1's figures, however, were far off from ChatGPT’s, which saw an estimated 100 million or more users sign up to use the model in the first three months, according to a February Reuters report.
With the partnership, Microsoft now backs two big players in the AI space, having invested a cumulative $13 million in OpenAI over the course of 2023, according to a January report by Fortune.
Democratizing AI through the power of partnership. We're excited to welcome Llama 2 from @Meta to @Azure and @Windows: https://t.co/OJyYP9sVBA
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) July 18, 2023
Meta’s decision to open source Llama was criticized by two United States senators in June, who claim that the “seemingly minimal” protections in the first version of Llama potentially opened the doors for malicious users to engage in “criminal tasks.”
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The firm behind ChatGPT is seemingly under pressure from other available open-source AI models and is prepping to enter the space with one of its own.
An open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model is reportedly being prepared for public release by OpenAI, the firm behind the AI chatbot ChatGPT.
In a May 16 report in The Information citing a person with knowledge of the plan, OpenAI is undertaking the move as pressure mounts from competing open-sourced AI models, such as those leaked from Meta in February.
The timeline of when the model would be released was not reported.
If OpenAI release a truly open-source model it would send progress stratospheric
— Alex MacCaw (@maccaw) May 15, 2023
It was said OpenAI’s open-source model would likely not be competitive with its flagship ChatGPT product, as the firm’s value comes from being able to sell access to its more sophisticated models.
OpenAI has faced stiff competition from open-source AI models such as Meta's LLaMa — which was originally limited to researchers but was leaked in full by a user from the imageboard site 4chan in late February.
Other open-source models include those from Stability AI, which opened its large language models in April, along with Databricks’ Dolly 2.0 AI, which it open-sourced days prior to Stability AI.
Open-source models mean the complete code is open to everyone. Anyone has the right to modify the models for any reason or fit them to specific purposes. Some firms choose to open-source their software as they believe it could benefit from contributions by outside developers.
Those building such models are getting significant backing funds too.
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On May 15, AI firm Together said it raised $20 million in a seed round backed by crypto figures including Oasis Labs co-founder Dawn Song, OpenSea co-founder Alex Atallah and Uniswap COO Mary-Catherine Lader — its stated mission is to provide open-source generative AI models.
Earlier in May, a leaked document from Google senior software engineer Luke Sernau pointed to open-source AI models as a significant threat to the company's own AI efforts.
“The uncomfortable truth is, we aren’t positioned to win this arms race and neither is OpenAI," Sernau wrote.
He added while Google was distracted by its competition with OpenAI, open-source AI models quietly became significantly more advanced. “They are lapping us," he wrote. “Open-source models are faster, more customizable, more private, and pound-for-pound more capable."
Cointelegraph contacted OpenAI for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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Update (May 16, 2:50 am UTC): This article has been updated to include more information from the leaked Google document and competing open-source AI models.