New Open-Source AI Giant Llama 3.1 405B Released by Meta

Meta has just unveiled its latest AI model, Llama 3.1 405B, which is making waves in the AI community. 

This new model is significant because it is the first openly available large language model comparable to GPT-4 that you can download and run on your hardware. 

Meta claims that 405B offers top-tier capabilities in general knowledge, math, tool use, and multilingual translation, making it a direct competitor to models from OpenAI and other industry leaders. 

However, while benchmarks suggest 405B performs similarly to GPT-4 Turbo and Claude 3.5 Sonnet, these metrics don’t fully capture the user experience. 

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg promotes this as a step towards “open source” AI, though the term’s use here is debated, as it generally refers to unrestricted code rather than just downloadable weights. 

Despite some criticism about terminology, 405B is a milestone in making powerful AI more accessible, with practical applications ranging from text summarization to coding assistance. 

The model is available for download via Meta’s site and Hugging Face, though it comes with licensing and usage conditions.