Meta is taking a very different approach to generative AI than most of its rivals, opting to give away the tech and downplaying its ability.

While most companies are looking to monetize their AI models, Meta has decided to open source its own LLaMA 2. Comments by Nick Clegg, the company’s President of Global Affairs, may shed light on the reason:

“In many ways, they’re quite stupid,” he told the BBC’s Today Programme.

Clegg also downplayed the risk such models pose, saying they are “far short” of the point experts warn about when AI could develop the ability to think and act for itself.

Clegg also addressed concerns by Dame Wendy Hall, Regents Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, about whether an open source AI model can be properly regulated.

“Models are being open-sourced all the time already,” he said.

“So it’s not really whether open sourcing of these large language models is going to take place, the question is how can you do it as responsibly and safely as possible.

“I feel I can assert without any fear of contradiction, that the LLMs that we are open-sourcing are safer than any of the other AI LLMs which have been open-sourced.”

It’s clear Meta is charting a far different course for its AI development than OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and others.