Mark Zuckerberg Unveils LLaMA, Meta's Powerful New Large Language Model

Large tech companies and startups are racing to develop products with integrated advanced AI.

By Steve Huff

Daniel Constante | Shutterstock

On Friday, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta Platforms' impending release to researchers of a new large language model called LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI). The model, developed by Meta's Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team, is intended to aid scientists and engineers in exploring AI applications and functions such as answering questions and summarizing documents.

The release of LLaMA comes as tech companies race to promote advances in AI techniques and integrate technology into their commercial products. As CNBC notes, Meta's release is distinguished from competitors' models as it will be available in a selection of sizes, from 7 billion parameters up to 65 billion parameters. Additionally, Zuckerberg said his company's new LLM technology — which could eventually solve math problems and conduct scientific research — will be available to the research community, and Meta is now accepting applications for access. This is a change from Google's LaMDA and ChatGPT's underlying models, which are not publicly available.

Reuters points out that Meta is joining an increasingly intense race to dominate AI technology, which began in earnest in late 2022 with OpenAI's ChatGPT. As far as Meta is concerned, LLaMA's launch also represents its commitment to open science — hence the choice to publicly release the state-of-the-art foundational large language model, along with allowing researchers an open resource to advance their work. Meta believes that unlike more finely-tuned models designed for specific purposes, theirs will prove versatile, with multiple use cases.

Another way LLaMA is different, according to Meta: It requires "far less" computing power than previous offerings and is trained in 20 languages, focusing on those based on the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. With its 13 billion parameters, LLaMA should outperform GPT-3, the model upon which ChatGPT is built. Meta also attributed LLaMA's performance to "cleaner" data and "architectural improvements" in the model that improved training stability.

To maintain the model's integrity and prevent misuse, Meta will release it under a non-commercial license focused on research use cases. Academic researchers, government, civil society, academic institutions, and industry research laboratories will be granted model access on a case-by-case basis.

Meta's launch of LLaMA may mark a major development in AI language models. The social media giant's commitment to open science and allowing researchers to study under a non-commercial license will limit the model's misuse.

LLaMA's versatility and problem-solving potential may provide a glimpse of AI's substantial potential benefits to billions of people at scale.

Steve Huff

Entrepreneur Staff

Related Topics

Editor's Pick

Everyone Wants to Get Close to Their Favorite Artist. Here's the Technology Making It a Reality — But Better.
The Highest-Paid, Highest-Profile People in Every Field Know This Communication Strategy
After Early Rejection From Publishers, This Author Self-Published Her Book and Sold More Than 500,000 Copies. Here's How She Did It.
Having Trouble Speaking Up in Meetings? Try This Strategy.
He Names Brands for Amazon, Meta and Forever 21, and Says This Is the Big Blank Space in the Naming Game
Money & Finance

What Is a Good Credit Score and How Do I Get One?

Is bad credit holding you back? This article explains what constitutes a good credit score and how to raise your score if it's low.

Business News

I Live on a Cruise Ship for Half of the Year. Look Inside My 336-Square-Foot Cabin with Wraparound Balcony.

I live on a cruise ship with my husband, who works on it, for six months out of the year. Life at "home" can be tight. Here's what it's really like living on a cruise ship.

Business News

These Are the Most and Least Affordable Places to Retire in The U.S.

The Northeast and West Coast are the least affordable, while areas in the Mountain State region tend to be ideal for retirees on a budget.

Thought Leaders

The Collapse of Credit Suisse: A Cautionary Tale of Resistance to Hybrid Work

This cautionary tale serves as a reminder for business leaders to adapt to the changing world of work and prioritize their workforce's needs and preferences.

Business Solutions

Learn to Build a ChatGPT Bot for Only $30

If you want to see what AI can do for your business, grab this course bundle today.

Leadership

6 Myths About Leadership That May Be Holding You Back

By dispelling these leadership myths, we can create a more realistic and nuanced understanding of what it means to be an effective leader.