Meta has announced the release of a new artificial intelligence model, Llama 3.1 405B; however, this is open source—free for any entity, individual, or organization to use and modify per their desire, but it cannot be said so about other vastly popular AI models created by various companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Simply put, Meta’s new AI, Llama 3.1 405B, is focused on matching or doing a better job than other top AI systems. What makes it special, however, is that it’s open source—meaning that developers can tinker with it and use it for their projects without needing to pay a fee, much less stick to a raft of strict rules set by a company.

What’s Special About Llama 3.1 405B?

According to Meta, Llama 3.1 405B is capable of doing a lot of things, much the same as other models of its competitors. It’s a big deal because not only is it one of the largest and most powerful AI systems available for free, but developers will be able to make incarnations of this AI model to do certain specific tasks, train the model with new information, and, well, do many other special things that will soon become everyday uses of technology. This will allow them to use AI for all manner of purposes and train it in-house, without having to expose their data to Meta.

More safety features are being provided by Meta for those who plan to run Llama 3.1 405B in their in-house applications, but these safety features have open-source status. That is, other developers are free to use or discard these safety features as they wish.

How Does Llama 3.1 405B Compare with Others?

So far, Meta hasn’t let anyone outside the company test Llama 3.1 405B to give us a sense of how it stacks up against other models like GPT-4o. Though very large and powerful, we just don’t have an idea of whether its performance is comparably good to that of current leaders in the field of AI.

For now, Llama 3.1 405B is available for use only in the United States. Meta decided to make it first available in this region because it might be wary of Europe’s strict AI rules. However, given that this model is open source, I’m quite sure that very soon those outside the US will get to use it through other means.

What Does This Mean for You?

That would be something exciting if you are a developer or just interested in AI. You would enjoy having a very good AI at your side without the need to pay or follow over-strict rules, opening up many paths to innovation and creativity in how AI could be used.

With Llama 3.1 405B, you will now be able to experiment, learn, and build new applications with some of the world’s most advanced AI available today. We will learn how far it can go and how well it fares against other leading AI models as many people start using it.

Feel free to experiment and make use of this open-source opportunity to its fullest; further developments will be noted as it becomes available in other regions!