Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Meta and OpenAI for allegedly using their content without permission to train artificial intelligence language models. From a report: The proposed class action lawsuits filed by Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden in San Francisco federal court Friday allege Facebook parent company Meta and ChatGPT maker OpenAI used copyrighted material to train chat bots. The lawsuits underscore the legal risks developers of chat bots face when using troves of copyrighted material to create apps that deliver realistic responses to user prompts. Silverman, Kadrey and Golden allege Meta and OpenAI used their books without authorization to develop their so-called large language models, which their makers pitch as powerful tools for automating tasks by replicating human conversation. In their lawsuit against Meta, the plaintiffs allege that leaked information about the company's artificial intelligence business shows their work was used without permission.

After surpassing 10 million sign-ups in the first seven hours, Meta's new Twitter rival, Threads, has reached a new milestone: 30 million sign-ups in less than 24 hours. TechCrunch reports: Threads passed 2 million signups in its first two hours live in the App Store and shows no signs of slowing down. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted the milestone on his Threads account. Threads was available for "preorder" through iOS, notifying users who were alerted of its existence through a flashy Instagram cross-promotion. Threads is deeply tied into Instagram and Instagram accounts now display a Threads user number so the counting is both transparent and happening in real time. Users who opted into the Threads pre-launch received a push notification when Threads went live on Wednesday afternoon and could immediately hop into Meta's latest app. Threads is also now the fastest app to cross the 1 million users mark, beating ChatGPT's record.

Further reading: Twitter Threatens To Sue Meta Over Threads

Mark Zuckerberg is in hot water in China-- again. From a report: An influential social media account affiliated with the official Beijing Daily on Wednesday raked the Meta Platforms founder over the coals for his previous criticisms of Chinese censorship and alleged intellectual property theft. The lengthy editorial emerged after the Wall Street Journal reported Meta was in talks with Tencent Holdings about helping sell the Quest VR headset in China, despite a block on its mainstay social media services from Facebook to Instagram.

Zuckerberg "dropped a rock on his own foot," the Beijing Daily said in a WeChat post that garnered more than 100,000 views. "You smashed the wok, and now you want to enjoy a Chinese meal?" Zuckerberg's relationship with China has run hot and cold. The Meta CEO was famously pictured jogging through a smog-filled Beijing and greeting then internet-czar Lu Wei at the height of a campaign to court officials in the world's largest internet arena.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about "protected speech," in an extraordinary preliminary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment. From a report: The injunction came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections.

The Trump-appointed judge's move could undo years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies. For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address a wide range of criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism. Over the last five years, coordination and communication between government officials and the companies increased as the federal government responded to rising election interference and voter suppression efforts after revelations that Russian actors had sowed disinformation on U.S. social sites during the 2016 election. Public health officials also frequently communicated with the companies during the coronavirus pandemic, as falsehoods about the virus and vaccines spread on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Sweden's data protection watchdog has issued a couple of fines in relation to exports of European users' data via Google Analytics which it found breach the bloc's privacy rulebook owing to risks posed by U.S. government surveillance. It has also warned other companies against use of Google's tool. From a report: The fines -- just over $1.1 million for Swedish telco Tele2 and less than $30,000 for local online retailer CDON -- are notable as they are the first such fines following a raft of strategic privacy complaints targeting Google Analytics (and Facebook Connect) back in August 2020.

The regulator found that so-called supplementary measures applied by Google to European users' data sent to the U.S. for processing were insufficient to raise the level of protection to the required legal standard. Including Google's use of IP address truncation (an anonymization measure) as, in the Tele2 case, it said the company did not clarify whether the truncation was performed before or after the transfer of the data to the U.S. so had failed to demonstrate there is "no potential access to the entire IP address before the last octet is truncated." The watchdog also found breaches of the bloc's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules on transfers to third countries in the case of two other companies' use of Google Analytics, Coop and Dagens Industries, but did not issue fines in those cases.

Gfycat, a place where users uploaded, created, and distributed GIFs of all sorts, is shutting down as of Sept. 1, according to a message on its homepage. From a report: Users of the Snap-owned service are asked to "Please save or delete your Gfycat content." "After September 1, 2023, all Gfycat content and data will be deleted from gfycat.com." Gfycat rose as a service during a period where, like Imgur, it was easier to use than any native tools provided by content sites like Facebook or Reddit.

As CEO and co-founcer Richard Rabbat told TechCrunch in 2016, after raising $10 million from investors, GIFs were "hard to make, slow to upload, and when you shared them, the quality wasn't very good." Gfycat created looped, linked Webm videos that, while compressed, retained an HD quality to them. They were easier to share than actual GIF-format files, and offered an API for other sites to tap in. "I see Gfycat as the ultimate platform for all short-form content, the way that YouTube is the platform for longer videos and Twitter is the platform for text-based news and media discussions," VC funder Ernestine Fu told TechCrunch in 2016, long before TikTok, YouTube shorts, and Elon Musk's Twitter ownership came to pass.

Mark Zuckerberg in late 2021 had a question for those working on Meta Platforms' strategy for its virtual-reality headset: If Apple can sell iPhones in China, and Tesla can sell cars, why can't we sell our devices there? From a report: The question, posed on a video call, led to a push by Meta to restart its China business by selling its Quest headsets in the country, according to a person familiar with the matter, more than a decade after Facebook was blocked there. The company held discussions with several Chinese tech companies and has made progress with videogame powerhouse Tencent, people familiar with the matter said. But the effort faces challenges, in part because Chinese executives worry that Zuckerberg isn't seen as friendly to China, according to people familiar with the matter.

In recent years the Meta founder has accused China of stealing technology and taken aim at ByteDance, the Chinese owner of video-sharing platform TikTok. That has undermined a charm offensive Zuckerberg undertook in Beijing in 2016 and bolstered negative views of the entrepreneur in Beijing, the people said. Officials' perceptions of Zuckerberg could add uncertainty should Meta and its partner seek licenses and approvals for their products and services in China, some of the people said. Meta's refusal to comply with Beijing's censorship rules led to its being blocked in 2009, officials have said. Both Facebook and Twitter were cut off that year after unrest in China's Xinjiang region, with state media saying social media was used to stir riots.

Monday U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said government workers with high security clearances had made UFO-related claims, leading to a bill's provision to halt any reverse-engineering of alien crafts. News stories at the time noted "allegations of secret UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs" by former intelligence official turned whistleblower, David Grusch, a story which Vanity Fair traced to a "little-known" site called The Debrief.

But that article's authors have some serious journalistic experience. Ralph Blumenthal spent more than 45 years on staff at The New York Times. Leslie Kean is an investigative science journalist known for her writing on UFOs. In 2017 they teamed up with a New York Times Pentagon correspondent for an "explosive 2017 UFO report," writes the Atlantic, "in which the journalists revealed a defunct secret Pentagon program — initially funded at the request of former Senate majority leader Harry Reid — to investigate 'unidentified flying objects.'" I've learned that Kean and Blumenthal did, in fact, bring the story to the Times, but the paper of record turned it down... The pair also pitched their story to Politico and The Washington Post. The Post had been trying to further report the story that the reporters had brought to the paper, but didn't think it was ready for publication; among its reservations, according to a source familiar, was that it was unclear what members of Congress made of Grusch's testimony... Politico — which, a source familiar noted, had the story for mere days, while the Post had the story for weeks — also wasn't able to turn around the story at the speed that Kean and Blumenthal wanted, Blumenthal said...

The writers' apparent time constraints have only raised more questions. "To be clear — the Washington Post did not pass on our story," Kean wrote on Facebook Monday. "Ralph and I took it to the Debrief because we were under growing pressure to publish it very quickly." Blumenthal told me that circumstances — including that Grusch's identity as the whistleblower had leaked out on the internet — pushed them to "publish sooner than we'd hoped." "If there had been no leaks, it might've been different," Blumenthal said. But "people on the internet were spreading stories Dave was getting harassing phone calls and we felt the only way to protect him was to get the story out...."

Now out in the world, the reporting process is raising even more eyebrows. During interviews on NewsNation with both Grusch and Kean, it became clear that neither had seen photos of the alleged craft. NewsNation's Brian Entin asked Kean about the lack of receipts: "He has the credentials, but there's no documents that he's handed over, there's no pictures, and as a journalist, you want to see documents; you want to see pictures." But Kean said the lack of documents or photographs did not raise red flags for her because "all of that information is classified." She believes it, she said, "because of all the sources I have who have told me the same thing... I don't think there's some conspiracy among all these people who don't know each other to make something like this up."

In response to the report, DoD spokesperson Sue Gough told NewsNation in a statement, "To date, AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.

The New York Times tells the story of Simon Mackenzie, a security officer at a U.K. discount store uploading security camera footage of shoplifters into a facial recognition program called Facewatch. "The next time those people enter any shop within a few miles that uses Facewatch, store staff will receive an alert."

Facewatch — now in nearly 400 stores across Britain — licenses facial recognition software made by Real Networks and Amazon. Though it only sends alert about repeat offenders, "Once added, a person remains there for a year before being deleted." For as little as 250 pounds a month, or roughly $320, Facewatch offers access to a customized watchlist that stores near one another share. When Facewatch spots a flagged face, an alert is sent to a smartphone at the shop, where employees decide whether to keep a close eye on the person or ask the person to leave. Mr. Mackenzie adds one or two new faces every week, he said, mainly people who steal diapers, groceries, pet supplies and other low-cost goods. He said their economic hardship made him sympathetic, but that the number of thefts had gotten so out of hand that facial recognition was needed. Usually at least once a day, Facewatch alerts him that somebody on the watchlist has entered the store...

Among democratic nations, Britain is at the forefront of using live facial recognition, with courts and regulators signing off on its use. The police in London and Cardiff are experimenting with the technology to identify wanted criminals as they walk down the street. In May, it was used to scan the crowds at the coronation of King Charles III. But the use by retailers has drawn criticism as a disproportionate solution for minor crimes. Individuals have little way of knowing they are on the watchlist or how to appeal. In a legal complaint last year, Big Brother Watch, a civil society group, called it "Orwellian in the extreme...." Madeleine Stone, the legal and policy officer for Big Brother Watch, said Facewatch was "normalizing airport-style security checks for everyday activities like buying a pint of milk."
There is a human in the loop, the article points out. "Every time Facewatch's system identifies a shoplifter, a notification goes to a person who passed a test to be a 'super recognizer' — someone with a special talent for remembering faces. Within seconds, the super recognizer must confirm the match against the Facewatch database before an alert is sent."

The company's founder tells the Times that in general, "mistakes are rare but do happen... If this occurs, we acknowledge our mistake, apologize, delete any relevant data to prevent reoccurrence and offer proportionate compensation."

And the article adds this official response from the U.K. government: Fraser Sampson, Britain's biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, who advises the government on policy, said there was "a nervousness and a hesitancy" around facial recognition technology because of privacy concerns and poorly performing algorithms in the past. "But I think in terms of speed, scale, accuracy and cost, facial recognition technology can in some areas, you know, literally be a game changer," he said. "That means its arrival and deployment is probably inevitable. It's just a case of when."

In a landmark ruling (PDF) on Thursday, the New Jersey Supreme Court sided with Facebook in a major court decision that requires prosecutors to get a wiretap order if they want to eavesdrop on social media accounts without adequate evidence of a crime. New Jersey Monitor reports: In a reversal of lower court decisions, the high court ruled against authorities who argued a warrant is sufficient to obtain nearly real-time release of such communications. That argument is unsupported by federal or state statute, the court said, adding that allowing such releases would effectively neuter New Jersey's wiretap law.

In separate cases focused on two men under investigation for drug offenses, authorities obtained a communications data warrant to force Facebook to disclose social media postings -- within 15 minutes of their creation -- made by the pair over a 30-day span. The state contended such releases, which Facebook said were as close to real-time as technology allows, could be made without meeting the higher bar for a wiretap order because by the time Facebook provided them, they would already have been transmitted and electronically stored.

But Thursday's decision says allowing such releases would make the state's wiretap statute obsolete because "law enforcement today would never need to apply for a wiretap order to obtain future electronic communications from Facebook users' accounts on an ongoing basis." Authorities must show probable cause to obtain a warrant. To obtain a wiretap order, they must also demonstrate that other investigatory methods would fail -- because they are too dangerous, for example -- according to criminal defense lawyer Brian Neary. Neary argued on behalf of the New Jersey State Bar Association, which joined the case as a friend of the court. "It's great to see the New Jersey Supreme Court make clear that whenever the government seeks ongoing access to our private conversations, it must meet the heightened protections required under state law and the federal and state constitutions," said Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Meta is planning to allow users in the EU to directly download apps through Facebook ads, aiming to compete with Google and Apple's app stores. The Verge's Alex Heath writes: The new type of ad is set to start as a pilot with a handful of Android app developers as soon as later this year, I've learned. Meta sees an opening to try this thanks to new regulation in the EU called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is expected to go into effect next spring. It deems Apple and Google as "gatekeepers" and requires that they open up their mobile platforms to alternative methods of downloading apps. Android technically allows sideloading already, though Google makes it difficult by coupling its in-app billing and licensing with the Play Store, along with the scary warnings it shows when someone tries to download an Android app from another source. Even still, Meta clearly thinks it's safer to try its test first on Android rather than Apple's iOS.

Meta's pitch to developers participating in the pilot is that, by hosting their Android apps and letting Facebook users download them directly without being kicked out to the Play Store, they'll see higher conversion rates for their app install ads. At least initially, Meta doesn't plan to take a cut of in-app revenue from participating apps, so developers in the pilot could still use whatever billing systems they want.

Google said Thursday it will remove Canadian news content from its search, news and discover products after a new law meant to compensate media outlets comes into force. CBC.ca reports: "We're disappointed it has come to this. We don't take this decision or its impacts lightly and believe it's important to be transparent with Canadian publishers and our users as early as possible," said Kent Walker, the president of global affairs at Google and Alphabet. "The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (a so-called 'link tax') creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating Canadians' access to news from Canadian publishers."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government was confident Google would come around on the legislation. "I will say the conversations with Google are ongoing. It is important that we find a way to ensure that Canadians can continue to access content in all sorts of ways but also that we protect rigorous independent journalism that has a foundational role in our democracies," he said. "We know that democracies only work with a strong independent diverse media and we will continue to work for that."

The bill has been pitched as a way to keep news outlets solvent after advertising moved en masse to digital platforms, virtually wiping out a major revenue stream for journalism. [...] In an attempt to reverse the revenue decline, the government's new regulatory regime will require companies like Google and the Meta-owned Facebook -- and other major online platforms that reproduce or facilitate access to news content -- to either pay to post content or go through a binding arbitration process led by an arms-length regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). An outlet will be considered an eligible news business if it regularly employs two or more journalists in Canada, operates largely within Canada and produces content that is edited and designed in this country. Google and Meta have signaled they'd rather get out of the news-posting business altogether rather than deal with this process. Meta also announced last week that would be removing all news content from Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada. You can read more about the Online News Act here.

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that in order to find someone guilty of making a "true threat" courts must first determine that the person recklessly disregarded the fact that their words might be perceived as threats. From a report: Experts fear the decision will create new hurdles for victims of cyberstalking by requiring them to first prove that their stalkers understand the consequences of their actions. "The Supreme Court has just decreed that stalking is free speech protected by the First Amendment if the stalker genuinely believes his actions are non-threatening," tweeted Mary Anne Franks, a professor at George Washington Law School and president of the nonprofit Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. "That is, the more deluded the stalker, the more protected the stalking."

The case, Counterman v. Colorado, concerns a man named Billy Raymond Counterman, who was convicted under a Colorado anti-stalking law, after he sent a barrage of threatening Facebook messages to a woman he'd never met. The Colorado law didn't require the court to consider Counterman's mental state when he sent the messages. It only had to consider his behavior and how it was objectively received, that is, whether he repeatedly contacted, followed, or surveilled his target in a way that would cause a "reasonable person" distress. Counterman was found guilty under that statute, but he appealed his conviction, arguing that his statements were protected by the First Amendment and did not constitute "true threats," a category of speech that falls outside the bounds of the First Amendment, because it wasn't his intention to threaten his target. In its decision, the Supreme Court overwhelmingly sided with Counterman.

Meta plans to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada once a parliament-approved legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishers comes into effect, the company said on Thursday. From a report: The legislation, known as the Online News Act, was approved by the Senate upper chamber earlier on Thursday and will become law after receiving royal assent from the governor general, a formality. The legislation was proposed after complaints from Canada's media industry, which wants tighter regulation of tech companies to prevent them from elbowing news businesses out of the online advertising market.

"Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act taking effect," Meta said in a statement. Facebook had telegraphed such a move for weeks, saying news has no economic value to the company and that its users do not use the platform for news. The act outlines rules to force platforms such as Facebook and Alphabet's Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content, a step similar to a groundbreaking law passed in Australia in 2021.

Meta has confirmed that it will remove all news content from Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada, following the passing of the Online News Act by the Canadian Parliament. Engadget reports: "Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect," the company posted. "We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada."

The Online News Act is designed to address the precipitous drop in advertising revenue Canadian news organizations have experienced over the past two decades. It does so by requiring big tech companies like Google and Meta to negotiate reimbursement plans with those outlets for running said stories on their respective platforms. Earlier in June, Meta announced that it was working to develop a software-based solution to its C-18 issue. As of Thursday, those efforts remain ongoing "and currently impact a small percentage of users in Canada." Aside from the loss of news functionality, Meta assures its users that no other aspects of the Facebook experience will be impacted.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Meta says its new speech-generating AI model is too dangerous for public release. Meta announced a new AI model called Voicebox yesterday, one it says is the most versatile yet for speech generation, but it's not releasing it yet: "There are many exciting use cases for generative speech models, but because of the potential risks of misuse, we are not making the Voicebox model or code publicly available at this time."

The model is still only a research project, but Meta says can generate speech in six languages from samples as short as two seconds and could be used for "natural, authentic" translation in the future, among other things.

The Associated Press reports: A project using artificial intelligence to track social media abuse aimed at players at the 2022 World Cup identified more than 300 people whose details are being given to law enforcement, FIFA said Sunday.

The people made "abusive, discriminatory, or threatening posts [or] comments" on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, soccer's governing body said in a report detailing efforts to protect players and officials during the tournament played in Qatar. The biggest spike in abuse was during the France-England quarterfinals game, said the report from a project created jointly by FIFA and the players' global union FIFPRO. It used AI to help identify and hide offensive social media posts... About 20 million posts and comments were scanned and more than 19,000 were flagged as abusive...

The identities of the more than 300 people identified for posting abuse "will be shared with the relevant member associations and jurisdictional law authorities to facilitate real-world action being taken against offenders," FIFA said. "Discrimination is a criminal act. With the help of this tool, we are identifying the perpetrators and we are reporting them to the authorities so that they are punished for their actions," FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement. "We also expect the social media platforms to accept their responsibilities and to support us in the fight against all forms of discrimination."

FIFA and FIFPRO have extended the system for use at the Women's World Cup that starts next month in Australia and New Zealand.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Bloomberg: Ask Amazon's digital assistant, "Hey, Alexa, is Amazon a monopoly?" and it will profess ignorance.

"Hmm, I don't know that one," it answers.

But ask about any of the other tech giants' business practices, and it's ready to critique them. Surfacing answers from across the internet, Alexa describes Apple as an "oligopoly" and cites Alphabet's Google as violating privacy rights, according to Bloomberg News tests of the software on three devices.... [Alexa] won't label Amazon a monopoly, but it tends to respond in the affirmative when asked the same question about Google, Meta's Facebook, Microsoft and Walmart. When Alexa is asked if Amazon has broken antitrust law, it says, "I don't have an answer to the question I just heard."

Google's Assistant and Apple's Siri, Alexa's two closest competitors, each cite news stories on government antitrust lawsuits against their companies. Siri, for the most part, offers up criticisms of the iPhone maker. But it evades at least one question about Apple's power. When asked whether Apple is a monopoly, Siri often replies, "I can't answer that, but Apple.com should be able to...."

Alexa also cites alleged privacy lapses by its rivals, bringing up a Facebook privacy settlement with the FTC and allegations that Apple's finger-scanning technology violates constitutional rights. When users ask whether Amazon violates users' privacy, Alexa sticks up for its safeguards: "Amazon builds multiple layers of privacy protections into your Alexa experience." It also links to an Amazon website with more information about Alexa's privacy settings.

Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who leaked what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, died on Friday at the age of 92. The cause was pancreatic cancer. The New York Times reports: The disclosure of the Pentagon Papers -- 7,000 government pages of damning revelations about deceptions by successive presidents who exceeded their authority, bypassed Congress and misled the American people -- plunged a nation that was already wounded and divided by the war deeper into angry controversy. It led to illegal countermeasures by the White House to discredit Mr. Ellsberg, halt leaks of government information and attack perceived political enemies, forming a constellation of crimes known as the Watergate scandal that led to the disgrace and resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. And it set up a First Amendment confrontation between the Nixon administration and The New York Times, whose publication of the papers was denounced by the government as an act of espionage that jeopardized national security. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the freedom of the press.

Mr. Ellsberg was charged with espionage, conspiracy and other crimes and tried in federal court in Los Angeles. But on the eve of jury deliberations, the judge threw out the case, citing government misconduct, including illegal wiretapping, a break-in at the office of Mr. Ellsberg's former psychiatrist and an offer by President Nixon to appoint the judge himself as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "The demystification and de-sanctification of the president has begun," Mr. Ellsberg said after being released. "It's like the defrocking of the Wizard of Oz." The story of Daniel Ellsberg in many ways mirrored the American experience in Vietnam, which began in the 1950s as a struggle to contain communism in Indochina and ended in 1975 with humiliating defeat in a corrosive war that killed more than 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians. [...] Over the years, Ellsberg was mentioned on Slashdot several times. In late 2000, Ellsberg was mentioned in a story about Clinton's veto of what would have been a new law to prevent leaks of classified information.

Ellsberg also expressed his support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2010 and called Edward Snowden the "greatest patriot whistleblower of our time."

He was also featured in a Slashdot story for his view on the growing role of internet companies in the public sphere. In 2011, Ellsberg said companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter need to take a stand and push back on excessive requests for personal data.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his deputies want other companies to freely use and profit from new artificial intelligence software Meta is developing, a decision that could have big implications for other AI developers and businesses that are increasingly adopting it. The Information: Meta is working on ways to make the next version of its open-source large-language model -- technology that can power chatbots like ChatGPT -- available for commercial use, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation and a person who was briefed about it. The move could prompt a feeding frenzy among AI developers eager for alternatives to proprietary software sold by rivals Google and OpenAI. It would also indirectly benefit Meta's own AI development.

[...] Meta stands to gain from releasing open-source AI models. As developers adopt and improve those models or patch their security holes, Meta will be able to incorporate those improvements in AI models for its own consumer and advertising products, Zuckerberg said in an April call with stock analysts. For instance, Zuckerberg has said he wants small businesses and content creators that use Facebook's apps to have access to "AI agents" who can act on their behalf by automatically communicating with fans or customers. "LLaMA or the language model underlying this is basically going to be the engine that powers that," he said in an interview last week with podcaster Lex Fridman.