I watched a good talk from Yann LeCun who is Chief AI Scientist at Meta, and he explained that the thinking is that open source AI models will be the long-term winner, so it's best for them to work in that arena.
Yann wants to cement his position as a leader in AI and while he clearly does not appreciate LLMS at all, he realizes that he needs to make waves in this area.
Mark needs a generative product and has invested tremendously in the infrastructure for AI in general (for recommendation). He needs researchers to use that infrastructure to create a generative product(s).
Yann sees this going on, realizes that he has a very powerful (research+recruiting) position and tells mark that he will only sign on if Meta gives away a good deal of research and Mark concedes, with the condition that he wants his generative product by end of 2023 or start of 2024.
It’s not just ego. It’s accelerationism. Giving this stuff away from free is probably going to accelerate AI a decade faster than if it was kept locked up behind closed doors at Google, OpenAI, etc. And if you’re an optimist then that actually might make the world a better place much faster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyqXLJsmsrk