Two U.S. Senators, Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley, have expressed concerns over Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to open source the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) model, LLaMA. In a letter sent on June 6, the senators criticized the lack of sufficient protections in Meta’s release of the AI model, stating that it could be potentially dangerous and used for criminal purposes.
While acknowledging the benefits of open-source software, the senators raised concerns about Meta’s “unrestrained and permissive” release of LLaMA without thorough consideration of its potential ramifications. They highlighted the fact that the model was leaked on BitTorrent shortly after its limited release to researchers, making it accessible to anyone without monitoring or oversight.
Blumenthal and Hawley expressed their worries that LLaMA could be adopted by spammers and cybercriminals to facilitate fraud and distribute obscene material. They compared LLaMA to other closed-source models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 and Google’s Bard, emphasizing how easily LLaMA can generate abusive content without the ethical guidelines and restrictions present in other models.
The senators posed several questions to Zuckerberg regarding risk assessments conducted before LLaMA’s release, Meta’s actions to prevent or mitigate potential harm, and the company’s use of user data for AI research. They also mentioned the practice of “jailbreaking” ChatGPT to bypass its restrictions, highlighting the need for responsible deployment of AI models.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is reportedly developing its own open-source AI model, partly in response to advancements made by other open-source models. The leaked document written by a senior software engineer at Google also emphasized the progress made in the field of open-source AI models.
Open-sourcing an AI model allows for modifications and contributions from developers, enabling the model to serve specific purposes. However, it also raises concerns about the responsible use of such technology and the potential for misuse if proper safeguards are not in place.
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