Zuckerberg’s Llama 3.1: 20 Unanswered Questions

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Mark Zuckerberg donned his gold chain again today to release Llama 3.1, a set of AI models as powerful as others released to date. Unlike other frontier models, he released these “open source,” allowing everyone worldwide free access and the ability to modify them for both good and bad purposes. I can understand the excitement around new AI tools being offered for free, but several critical questions remain unanswered:

1. Price Dumping: Is it acceptable for one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, Mark Zuckerberg, to engage in price dumping to eliminate competition in a crucial industry like AI, thereby gaining even more control over global information?
2. Market Power Abuse: Isn’t the forced bundling of Meta AI into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp a new form of market power abuse?
3. Competitive Edge: How does giving away the latest US AI technology not amount to surrendering the country’s competitive edge?
4. Misuse Prevention: How exactly will Meta ensure that malicious actors don’t exploit Llama for harmful purposes?
5. Open Source Risks: How does Meta plan to address the concerns raised by AI thought leaders about the risks of open-source AI, such as the inability to control or patch unsecured models once released?
6. Outsourcing Problems: Is it acceptable for Meta to outsource any potential problems to the world?
7. Legal Concerns: Given that Llama was trained on copyrighted materials without permission, are these models even legal?
8. EU Embargo: Meta has said it would embargo Llama 3.1 in Europe. How exactly will it guarantee that if the models are freely available?
9. Data Exploitation: With Meta users unable to opt out of their data being exploited, isn’t this a new peak of monopsony abuse of power?
10. Oversight and Control: Should a company exist as a single entity controlled by one person with no effective oversight, possessing information about most of humanity through its social media dominance and now the most widely distributed AI?
11. Democracy Risks: Meta’s social media platforms allow fake political ads, thereby enabling false interference in democratic elections. Does adding AI dominance increase or decrease the risk of undermining democracy?
12. Role of Governments: Is it acceptable for one individual, Mark Zuckerberg, to decide international AI strategy and ignore regulatory efforts by global governments?
13. Privacy Issues: How will Meta address the privacy concerns associated with the widespread deployment of Llama, especially given their track record with user data?
14. Ethical AI Development: What steps is Meta taking to ensure ethical AI development and deployment, and how transparent are these processes to the public?
15. International Security: Given Meta’s decision to allow access to their AI models by Chinese developers, how does this align with US foreign policy and national security concerns?
16. Model Reliability: With platforms like Hugging Face hosting hundreds of thousands of AI models, who is responsible for ensuring their safety and reliability? How can users trust these models if developers assume no liability?
17. Future AI Agents: As AI agents begin to take autonomous actions within IT systems, what risks does this pose, especially with unsecured AI? How can users ensure these systems are safe and reliable?
18. Public Trust: How does relieving unsecured AI developers of liability affect public trust in AI technologies? Shouldn’t accountability be crucial for building this trust?
19. Innovation vs. Safety: Can a balanced approach be found that fosters innovation while implementing necessary safeguards to mitigate risks? Shouldn’t this approach include transparent disclosure practices, robust regulatory frameworks, ethical guidelines, and mechanisms for accountability and oversight?
20. AGI: Experts believe superhuman intelligence or AGI is possible in a median time of 5 years. No one knows exactly what that will mean or if humans will still be able to control their destinies thereafter. Is it wise to continually release the latest AI tech with no oversight and no plan for when AGI comes?

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