Meta’s Llama large language model discourages Open Source Initiative!

albertkultro

WhatsApp is working on making Meta AI more useful and with the help of an upcoming update, you could be getting more context about the messages you are receiving.

WhatsApp has been putting a lot of effort into tackling scams and fake news on its platform. Now, there's a new feature being developed that would let you forward messages to Meta AI so you can get more context on them.

Meta AI has been present on WhatsApp since April of this year. The AI chatbot is there to answer your questions, give advice, and also generate content among other things. However, previously you weren't able to forward messages or media you've received to the chat with Meta AI. But that seems to be about to change.

The folks at WABetaInfo have found that WhatsApp will be letting you get more context of messages you've received thanks to Meta AI. The new feature will let you select Meta AI from the contact list when you decide to forward a message. Right now, the functionality has been found for WhatsApp for Android.

Right now, you can send media or messages to Meta AI by copy-pasting it in the conversation with the chatbot. Also, you will be able to add your question along with the forwarded message with a new "Ask a question" box which will appear at the bottom when you're forwarding to Meta AI.

If you choose not to provide context when you're forwarding the message to the AI chatbot, it will just analyze the message as is and generate a response. If you want it to check the authenticity of a message, it would be better to ask things like "Is this information accurate", so Meta AI will know what you want it to do with the forwarded message.

The AI boom has raised the stakes in the tech industry’s long running debate over the merits of open source versus closed source software. But for Facebook parent company Meta, “unlocking” large language models is the only way to go if AI is to reach its full potential.

“It’s ridiculous for me to think of a world where we enclose AI and have an API for intelligence,” Manohar Paluri, a vice president of generative AI engineering at Meta, said Tuesday at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco. “Progress for AI in the coming decades will only happen if we go the open route.”

Technically, Meta’s Llama large language model does not meet the definition of open source as defined by the Open Source Initiative in a definition updated only a month ago to grapple with a wave of AI models. But Llama is nonetheless among the largest and most powerful AI models that’s freely available for the general public to download, customize and create AI apps or tools with.

Paluri argued that the accessibility of Llama is key to its success so far, because “distribution” is one of four elements among all successful models today. The other three are, talent, compute power, and data.

Critics of open AI models have raised concerns about the technology falling into the wrong hands. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Chinese researched had used Meta’s Llama technology to create an AI model for military use. Paluri did not address the safety issue when asked about it, emphasizing the benefits of open source instead.

Llama’s accessibility has helped Meta catch up with rivals OpenAI and Alphabet in the AI race, after initially getting caught flat footed by the advent of generative AI at the end of 2022.