Meta to let US national security agencies and defense contractors use Llama AI

Meta announced Monday that it would allow US national security agencies and defense contractors to use its open-source artificial intelligence model, Llama. The announcement came days after Reuters reported an older version of Llama had been used by researchers to develop defense applications for the military wing of the Chinese government.

Meta’s policies typically prohibit the use of its open-source large language model for “military, warfare, nuclear industries or applications, [and] espionage”. The company is making an exception for US agencies and contractors as well as similar national security agencies in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to Bloomberg.

“These kinds of responsible and ethical uses of open source AI models like Llama will not only support the prosperity and security of the United States, they will also help establish US open-source standards in the global race for AI leadership,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post.

Among the government contractors Meta is opening up Llama to are Amazon Web Services, Anduril, Booz Allen, Databricks, Deloitte, IBM, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir, Scale AI and Snowflake.

The company emphasized the need to develop AI that is more advanced than that of China – a key talking point that many members of the US Congress bring up when discussing whether and how to regulate AI.

“In a world where national security is inextricably linked with economic output, innovation and job growth, widespread adoption of American open-source AI models serves both economic and security interests,” Clegg wrote. “Other nations – including China and other competitors of the United States – understand this as well, and are racing to develop their own open-source models, investing heavily to leap ahead of the US.”

Two Chinese researchers associated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were able to access and use an older version of Llama to develop a chatbot that helped to gather and process military intelligence, according to Reuters. The researcher’s use of Llama was “unauthorized”, according to a statement Meta provided Reuters.

US regulators have repeatedly expressed their desires to beat other countries, namely China, to developing the most advanced AI for national security reasons. Last week, the White House published its first memo on how the federal government plans to address AI national security policy. Among the priorities the White House listed was the need to “harness AI to achieve national security objectives” and accelerate the procurement of AI capabilities from the private sector.

“Advances at the frontier of AI will have significant implications for national security and foreign policy in the near future,” the memo reads.

The tech industry has long supplied AI technology to US and international defense and national security agencies. In 2018, Google workers successfully opposed the company’s participation in a Pentagon project, called Project Maven, that uses AI to better decipher drone videos. Tech workers have protested these defense contracts with more fervor in the last year, particularly as many questioned their employer’s work with the Israeli government. However, with the government demand for AI models sky-rocketing, tech firms are likely to be more motivated than ever to bid for these national security contracts.