• Meta to partner with the US government to deploy Llama AI
• No financial gain, but strategic benefits for Meta’s AI
• Llama 4 promises advancements in reasoning and speed

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is looking to further position itself as a key player in the political space with a major new wide-ranging government partnership.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has claimed Meta is actively collaborating with the US government to adopt its AI models, particularly Llama, the company’s large language model.

Zuckerberg’s comments during a recent Meta earnings call have sparked several questions about the extent and nature of these partnerships, especially regarding potential applications in government agencies.

Meta’s partnership with the US Government

Zuckerberg’s declaration that Meta is “working with the public sector to adopt Llama across the U.S. government” raises several important questions. While the specifics of which government departments or agencies will use Llama remain unclear, the announcement suggests Meta is taking a significant step toward embedding its AI technology within government operations.

However, the details of how Llama will be utilized by these government agencies are still speculative, as there is considerable interest in whether Meta’s AI, specifically Llama, will have military applications. The Department of Defense and various intelligence agencies have already integrated AI into several areas, such as improving cybersecurity and automating complex decision-making.

Meta spokesperson Faith Eischen stated there is no financial incentive for Meta in the collaboration. While Meta may not be directly profiting from these AI deployments, the move positions the company as a crucial partner in government AI initiatives, which could bolster its reputation and influence in the public sector.

Given the rising importance of AI in both the private and public sectors, Meta’s involvement with the government could increase its access to large-scale public data, provide valuable real-world use cases for Llama, and solidify its standing as a leader in AI development.

“We’ve partnered with the US State Department to see how Llama could help address different challenges,” Eischen said, “from expanding access to safe water and reliable electricity, to helping support small businesses…been in touch with the Department of Education to learn how Llama could help make the financial aid process more user friendly for students and are in discussions with others about how Llama could be utilized to benefit the government.”

In addition to discussing Meta’s current AI collaborations with the government, Zuckerberg provided a glimpse into the company’s future AI developments, teasing the upcoming release of Llama 4, which is being trained on what he described as “a cluster bigger than I’ve seen reported for anything else others are doing.”

The company reported $40.5 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2024, marking a 19 per cent increase compared to the previous year. It also made a profit of $17.3 billion for the quarter while its user base continues to grow, with 3.29 billion people now using at least one of Meta’s apps daily.

Via The Verge

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