Mark Zuckerberg's AI Strategy Earns Praise from Tech Leaders and Rivals

Everybody seems to love Zuck right now | Business Insider India

If there were a Big Tech CEO popularity contest, Zuck might well be taking the crown right now. The Meta chief is winning the admiration of CEOs of companies including Shopify and Perplexity. Even Elon Musk gave Zuck a rare nod of approval. What's sparking this praise? Meta's move to open source its biggest AI model yet: Llama 3.1, which was released on Tuesday. "It is impressive and Zuck does deserve credit for open-sourcing," Musk said in response to an X post. Meanwhile, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke applauded Zuck and said Llama 3.1 is an "incredible gift." Meta says Llama 3.1 outperforms rivals, including OpenAI, on certain benchmarks. Alongside the reveal, Zuck laid his cards on the table about why Meta is pursuing an open-source approach in a manifesto published Tuesday that Paul Graham, cofounder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, called "eloquent." Perplexity chief Aravind Srinivas praised Zuck's "well articulated" reasoning about not fearing the loss of a technical edge, noting that Meta can gain by letting developers use and improve its models. As Grammarly CEO Rahul Roy-Chowdhury pointed out in December, open-sourcing AI models can benefit developers because it reduces the time and resources needed to develop new applications, making AI accessible beyond large tech companies. It also increases transparency, as third parties can audit and verify the datasets and codes of the models and, in theory, make products safer. It's the opposite tactic of Sam Altman's OpenAI. Zuck made a quip about its closed-source approach in a recent Bloomberg TV interview: "It's a somewhat ironic thing to have an organization that's named OpenAI but is sort of the leader in building closed AI models. It's not necessarily bad, but it's kind of a little funny." Zuckerberg also admitted there's a real possibility that Big Tech firms might be "over-building" and overspending in the AI arms race, but suggested this might be rational considering where the technology is headed. But Zuck's plaudits aren't just for open-sourcing. He's been doing other cool things lately that have scored him some serious internet points, like posting a video of him surfing whilst wearing a tux on Independence Day, rocking a chain, and showing off his newfound drip.

Everybody seems to love Zuck right now

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. "It is impressive and Zuck does deserve credit for open-sourcing," Musk said in response to an X post. Meanwhile, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke applauded Zuck and said Llama 3.1 is an "incredible gift." Meta says Llama 3.1 outperforms rivals, including OpenAI, on certain benchmarks. Alongside the reveal, Zuck laid his cards on the table about why Meta is pursuing an open-source approach in a manifesto published Tuesday that Paul Graham, cofounder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, called "eloquent." Perplexity chief Aravind Srinivas praised Zuck's "well articulated" reasoning about not fearing the loss of a technical edge, noting that Meta can gain by letting developers use and improve its models. As Grammarly CEO Rahul Roy-Chowdhury pointed out in December, open-sourcing AI models can benefit developers because it reduces the time and resources needed to develop new applications, making AI accessible beyond large tech companies. It also increases transparency, as third parties can audit and verify the datasets and codes of the models and, in theory, make products safer. It's the opposite tactic of Sam Altman's OpenAI. Zuck made a quip about its closed-source approach in a recent Bloomberg TV interview: "It's a somewhat ironic thing to have an organization that's named OpenAI but is sort of the leader in building closed AI models. It's not necessarily bad, but it's kind of a little funny." Zuckerberg also admitted there's a real possibility that Big Tech firms might be "over-building" and overspending in the AI arms race, but suggested this might be rational considering where the technology is headed. But Zuck's plaudits aren't just for open-sourcing. He's been doing other cool things lately that have scored him some serious internet points, like posting a video of him surfing whilst wearing a tux on Independence Day, rocking a chain, and showing off his newfound drip.

Elon Musk finally lauds Mark Zuckerberg in a rare exchange

Elon Musk finally sits on the same page with Mark Zuckerberg, as he is ready to give some "credit" to the latter. Musk and Zuckerberg have often been at odds, with the Tesla boss frequently taking jabs at Zuckerberg and even challenging him to a boxing match after Meta launched Threads to compete with X. However, there is one area where the two tech moguls find common ground: artificial intelligence. On Tuesday, Musk complimented Zuckerberg following the release of Meta's latest AI model, Llama 3.1. Meta claims that this model outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4 and has made it open-source, allowing the public to use it for free. In response to a post on X by former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy, Musk said, "It is impressive, and Zuck does deserve credit for open-sourcing." ALSO READ| Bill Gates wants 'smart' Elon Musk to speak on this issue more: 'He talks a lot but...' Both Zuckerberg and Musk have clear ambitions to dominate the AI space. In January, Zuckerberg mentioned in an interview with The Verge that Meta had been accumulating AI chips from Nvidia, stating, "We have built up the capacity to do this at a scale that may be larger than any other individual company. I think a lot of people may not appreciate that." Similarly, Musk's AI startup, xAI, raised $6 billion during its Series B funding round in May. Musk's decision to start xAI partly stemmed from his disagreements with his cofounders at OpenAI. He co-founded OpenAI with current CEO Sam Altman in 2015 but left the company's board in 2018. Musk expressed his frustration in a post on X in February 2023, writing, "OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it 'Open' AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all." ALSO READ| Elon Musk vows to 'destroy the woke mind virus' that 'killed' his son Zuckerberg shares a similar ethos regarding open-source AI: "I believe that open source is necessary for a positive AI future." He further wrote in a company blog, "There is an ongoing debate about the safety of open source AI models, and my view is that open source AI will be safer than the alternatives."