Meta and IBM Forge ‘AI Alliance’ With 50 Members Focusing On Open Innovation in Artificial Intelligence

While not joining the existing ‘Frontier Model Forum’ by Google, Microsoft and others, IBM and Meta have launched the AI Alliance to work towards promoting “open, safe, and responsible AI”. According to a blogpost by Meta, AI Alliance is a collaboration of over 50 member organisations across industry, startup, academia, research and government supporting open research and innovation in artificial intelligence. The collaborators include Cornell University, Dartmouth, Dell Technologies, Hugging Face, Imperial College London, Intel, INSAIT, Linux Foundation, MLCommons, MOC Alliance operated by Boston University and Harvard University, NASA, NSF, Oracle, Partnership on AI, Red Hat, Roadzen, ServiceNow, Sony Group, Stability AI, University of California Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Notre Dame, The University of Tokyo, and Yale University among others. Why does it matter?
While the Frontier Model Forum formed by Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Inflection is focused on proprietary models, the AI Alliance is seen encouraging open-source AI models and research. Both forums, however, outline objectives emphasising on AI safety, and responsible development of AI products with a multi-stakeholder approach. Tech companies like Meta, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Open AI, Anthropic and Inflection have also voluntarily committed to adopting seven key measures for safe deployment of AI products in a meeting convened by the US government. As governments are working towards establishing the best-suited regulatory framework for AI, an alliance between big tech companies can be seen as an effort to self-regulate and discourage greater government regulation of AI systems across sectors. What will the AI Alliance do?
The alliance will focus on developing and deploying “benchmarks and evaluation standards, tools, and other resources that enable the responsible development and use of AI systems at global scale, including the creation of a catalog of vetted safety, security and trust tools”. Members of the AI Alliance emphasise on encouraging the advancement of open foundation models, with diverse capabilities including “highly capable multilingual, multi-modal, and science model” to address challenges in sectors like education, climate etc. It will also work towards adoption of essential software technology and focus on contributions for supporting AI hardware accelerator ecosystem. The members are also expected to facilitate a platform for researchers and students to engage with different stakeholders and contribute towards developing essential AI models. Developing “educational content and resources” for informing the public and policymakers on various aspects of AI regulation, is another objective the AI Alliance will be focusing on. Lastly, the group will also launch initiatives that encourage “open development of AI” and promote the use cases of AI along with the work done by the alliance. Also Read: Google, Microsoft, OpenAI Collaborate To Establish ‘Frontier Model Forum’ For Artificial Intelligence Indian Govt “Studying” The Requirement Of Regulatory Framework For AI: IT Ministry In Rajya Sabha India AI And Meta Sign MoU To Collaborate On AI Technologies, Will Create Datasets For Indian Languages Talking Points: AI Companies Agree To Watermark Content And Seven Other Commitments, US Announces STAY ON TOP OF TECH NEWS:  Our daily newsletter with the top story of the day from MediaNama, delivered to your inbox before 9 AM. Click here to sign up today!