The field of AI is advancing swiftly, accompanied by increasing safety concerns, yet regulation remains minimal. In response, IBM and Meta have recently announced the formation of an AI Alliance, an industry-based initiative addressing these issues.
Their collaborative mission involves: “fostering an open community and enabling developers and researchers to accelerate responsible innovation in AI while ensuring scientific rigor, trust, safety, security, diversity, and economic competitiveness.”
A key aspect of the Alliance’s work will be to increase the availability of open-source AI models, which have publicly accessible source code. This approach contrasts with the proprietary models used by companies such as OpenAI and Google.
The AI Alliance emphasizes open sourcing as a fundamental aspect of its mission. Nick Clegg, Meta’s President of Global Affairs, expressed in a statement that open development of AI allows broader access to its benefits, fosters innovation, and enhances safety. He said “The AI Alliance brings together researchers, developers, and companies to share tools and knowledge that can help us all make progress whether models are shared openly or not. We’re looking forward to working with partners to advance the state-of-the-art in AI and help everyone build responsibly.”
The AI Alliance, in its declaration, emphasized its intention to either initiate or improve projects with definitive objectives. These include establishing benchmarks to guide the ethical development of AI systems. An important part of this effort will be to compile and maintain a catalog of approved tools, while also encouraging developers to adopt them.
Additionally, the Alliance aims to concentrate on enhancing safety and transparency in AI. This includes creating educational materials to inform the public and policymakers about various aspects of AI, as well as organizing events and initiatives that emphasize safe AI development practices.
The Alliance has garnered support from over 50 global organizations and educational institutions, including Intel, NASA, Cleveland Clinic, and Yale University. Notably, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is not among the founding members of this initiative.
More recently, Meta has also launched its latest real-time translation AI model that can maintain the speaker’s tone, accent, voice, pitch, and more. Meanwhile, IBM launched a $500 million fund for investing in enterprise-focused AI startups.
