Meta-AI event in London: Open source AI, disinformation and llama 3

At Meta AI’s London event this Tuesday, Yann LeCun, Nick Clegg and others discussed current topics in AI.

Clegg, the previous deputy prime minister of the UK and current president of worldwide affairs at Meta, discussed the necessity for AI to interrupt free from the “clammy hands” of Silicon Valley.

Clegg spoke concerning the importance of constructing AI tools widely and freely available and freeing them from the monopolistic rule of a couple of large technology firms within the US.

This is in keeping with Meta AI’s ethos, which goals to challenge proprietary AI research and development at Microsoft, Google, etc. To distinguish Meta itself from “large US technology firms” can be going too far.

While Meta’s Llama series of language models is just not completely open source (and the meaning of the term is). hotly debated), they definitely are more open as models trained by OpenAI, Google, etc.

Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, one of the outstanding researchers in the sphere, also strongly supports open source AI initiatives.

“It is critical to democratize technology in order that it doesn’t just remain within the cash-strapped hands of a small variety of very large and well-heeled firms in California,” Clegg said, echoing LeCun’s own sentiments, who noted, “It cannot be made by a handful of firms on the West Coast of the United States.”

Others, like NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and former Stability AI Emad Mostaque, have done so talked concerning the need for countries to construct their very own sovereign AI and free the technology from central ownership.

When I spoke at an event earlier this 12 months, Huang said“(AI) codifies your culture, the intelligence of your society, your common sense, your history – you own your personal data.”

Nick Clegg downplays AI’s threat to global democracy

Clegg contradicted the prevailing narrative when he identified that AI tools haven’t been used systematically to disrupt or undermine major elections in countries similar to Taiwan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia thus far this 12 months.

At first glance, it seems a bizarre comment as Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh have all been affected by AI-related disinformation events. Deep fake videos targeted this in Bangladesh last 12 months Discredit oppositionfor instance, by showing how they take unpopular positions on sensitive issues similar to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

In Indonesia, Erwin Aksa, deputy leader of Golkar, one in all Indonesia’s largest political parties, said posted a deep fake by former dictator Suharto, which received over 4.7 million views. It should encourage people to vote.

Into Pakistan AI avatar of former Prime Minister Imran Khan declared victory amid a chaotic vote count that is still disputed to at the present time.

“It is true that we ought to be vigilant and vigilant, however it is striking how little these tools have been used systematically to really try and undermine and disrupt elections,” Clegg noted in the course of the Meta AI Day event.

Clearly, we cannot easily quantify the impact or harm of AI-powered election campaigns. However, AI voting tactics have already been proven effective, and evidence from various scientific disciplines shows that they’re deep fakes have an effect on human decision-makingoften with lasting effects.

Clegg argues that AI ought to be viewed as each a defensive and offensive tool against disinformation or, in his words, our “sword and shield” against disinformation.

Certainly not everyone seems to be convinced of this.

Lama 3 is imminent

Meta also announced its near-term plans to launch Llama 3, its successor language model. Like its predecessors, it’s going to be free and partially open source under Meta’s own license.

Clegg announced: “Within the following month, less actually, hopefully in a really short time period, we hope to start rolling out our latest suite of next-generation Foundation models, Llama 3.”

“There shall be various different models with different capabilities and flexibility (released) later this 12 months, and really soon.”

Chris Cox, Meta’s Chief Product Officer, explained the corporate’s vision and described its intention to integrate Llama 3 into multiple Meta products.

This model may also apparently be more open in nature, with weaker or more flexible guardrails. Meta recently withheld Emu, its image generation tool, on account of concerns about latency, security and value – so they are not completely throwing caution to the wind.

Although details of Llama 3’s parameters haven’t been revealed, it is predicted to have around 140 billion parameters, surpassing its predecessor Llama 2’s 70 billion.