Meta rolls out Llama 3 large language model
Meta announced it was rolling out the Llama 3 large language model, its most advanced one yet, that will also be used to upgrade the Meta AI chatbot assistant. The company said that the Llama 3 was trained on a data set several times larger than the one used for Llama 2, and that future goals including making it multilingual and multimodal. Mark Zuckerberg also announced the release of the new model and said that Meta aimed to build the world’s leading AI and make it available to everyone. However, there was a hiccup when the newly launched Meta AI chatbot responded to some people in a Facebook group - by pretending to be the parent of a school-going child.
The Llama 3 model on its own will soon be made available via standard software offerings, and Meta stressed that it had selected high quality data from public sources in both English and foreign languages to train its latest model.
Google fires 28 employees after anti-Israel protests
Google said that it had fired 28 employees after protesters carried out sit-ins in company offices located in New York and Sunnyvale. Protesters occupied the offices for almost 10 hours as they demonstrated against the company’s $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract that supports Israel’s cloud and AI infrastructure. Google warned that similar actions by employees would result in consequences, while CEO Sundar Pichai said that disruptive issues and political debates should not be a part of the workplace while the company focuses on its AI offerings.
The organisation No Tech for Apartheid criticised Google’s leadership for supporting the Israeli government while it was bombarding Palestinians, and insisted that the protesters’ sit-ins had been peaceful rather than disruptive and frightening, as Google claimed.
Stanford releases 2024 AI Index
Stanford’s newly released AI Index for this year paints a striking picture of an industry that is hurtling ahead in terms of both open source and closed products even as younger workers wonder whether the new technology will take over their jobs. AI firms released 149 AI large language models this year, with most of them being open source. However, closed models appear to perform better when tested with industry standard benchmarks.
In the Gen Z generation, 66% believed AI would significantly affect current jobs, when compared to 46% of baby boomers. Worldwide, more than a third expected AI to replace them in their job roles. A majority of Australians, British people, Americans, Canadians, and Indians surveyed admitted that AI made them nervous.
