Facebook parent Meta to US government: Be open on AI
Facebook parent Meta Platforms has an important warning for US government. The company’s policy chief Nick Clegg has warned the US government officials that limiting companies from sharing certain artificial intelligence technologies publicly could harm American influence over the relatively new and evolving global AI industry.
In public comments submitted to the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Meta wrote that a “restrictive approach” to sharing AI models may mean that technologies developed in other countries “become the global norm.”
“It’s not as if that vacuum is not going to be filled by others,” Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in an interview. “Open-sourcing is actually the way you export US values and technology.” The public input from Meta, the parent of social media apps Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was shared with the White House after an open request for comment last month by the Biden administration, which is considering how to regulate AI technology.
The AI community is divided on the issue of accessibility to AI technologies. While some, like OpenAI, advocate for keeping their developments private, others, including Meta and Microsoft, support the open-source movement for certain AI innovations.