Facebook’s parent meta is forming teams with hugging face and European cloud infrastructure company Scaleway will launch a new ai-focused startup program at the Station F startup megacampus in Paris.
The underlying goal of the program is to promote a more “open and collaborative” approach to ai development across the French tech world.
The timing of the announcement is notable, coming amid a growing push for regulation and a stark conflict between the “open” and “closed” realms of ai.
Many major tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT, are advocating for greater regulation and warning about the existential threat posed by ai, even though they are simultaneously developing powerful ai technologies. Some of these arguments focus on the risks of open source ai and how it could be manipulated by bad actors. On the other side of the debate is the notion that these tech companies are simply raising alarm to force regulators to support a more “closed” ethos of ai development, ultimately protecting themselves from competition.
Meta is largely in the latter camp. Last week, the company’s chief ai scientist, Yann LeCun, joined more than 70 signatories in calling for greater openness in ai development, warning against too much regulatory rush.
“History shows us that rushing toward the wrong kind of regulation can lead to concentrations of power that harm competition and innovation,” the letter states. “Open models can contribute to open debate and improve policy formulation. If our goals are security and accountability, then openness and transparency are essential ingredients to get there.”
And it is in that context that Meta is partnering with one of the biggest players in the open source ai space.
While Meta itself has open-sourced its own generative ai models, Hugging Face (a billion-dollar venture-backed startup in its own right) has pitched its position as a sort of open-source alternative to OpenAI, packed with open alternatives to OpenAI. companies like ChatGPT and spearheading community projects like BigScience.
So in many ways, Meta and Hugging Face coming together today makes a lot of sense, given their respective stances on the whole “open” versus “closed” ai discussion.
“For me, open source ai is the most important topic of the decade, as it is the cornerstone towards the democratization of ethical ai,” Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue said in a statement.
open foundation
From today until December 1 (2023), startups ai-Startup-Program-Candidate-Antechamber-c00cf88ed2e741029f5e3d50a1e44e39″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Can apply to join the new “ai Startup Program” at Station F, and five winners will move on to the accelerator program that will run from January to June. The chosen startups, selected by a jury from Meta, Hugging Face and the French cloud company Scalewill have at least one thing in common: they will work on projects substantially built on open-based models, or at least be able to demonstrate a “willingness to integrate these models into their products and services,” according to the announcement issued by Meta today.
“With the proliferation of basic models and generative artificial intelligence, the goal is to bring the economic and technological benefits of open and next-generation models to the French ecosystem,” the announcement states.
It’s somewhat notable that Meta has chosen to bypass major cloud infrastructure companies (and open source ai detractors) like Microsoft and Google, opting instead to partner with a smaller, independent European player like Scaleway. .
In fact, the winning startups will receive mentoring from Meta researchers and engineers, gain access to Hugging Face’s various platforms and tools, and Scaleway computing resources.
While it would be incorrect to say that Meta has given up on its lofty metaverse ambitions, a lot has changed in the last 12 months. Almost exactly a year ago, Meta partnered with L’Oréal and French business school HEC to launch a startup accelerator at Station F focused on all things VR/AR/MR. But with ChatGPT and generative ai gaining steam, Meta has had to refocus its efforts on something a little more short-term, which is where this new accelerator program comes into play.
