The shift in policy, covering government agencies and contractors working on national security, is intended to promote “responsible and ethical” innovations, the company said.
Meta will allow U.S. government agencies and contractors working on national security to use its artificial intelligence models for military purposes, the company said on Monday, in a shift from its policy that prohibited the use of its technology for such efforts.
Meta said that it would make its A.I. models, called Llama, available to federal agencies and that it was working with defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen as well as defense-focused tech companies including Palantir and Anduril. The Llama models are “open source,” which means the technology can be freely copied and distributed by other developers, companies and governments.
Meta’s move is an exception to its “acceptable use policy,” which forbade the use of the company’s A.I. software for “military, warfare, nuclear industries,” among other purposes.
In a blog post on Monday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said the company now backed “responsible and ethical uses” of the technology that supported the United States and “democratic values” in a global race for A.I. supremacy.
“Meta wants to play its part to support the safety, security and economic prosperity of America — and of its closest allies too,” Mr. Clegg wrote. He added that “widespread adoption of American open source A.I. models serves both economic and security interests.”
A Meta spokesman said the company would share its technology with members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance: Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand in addition to the United States. Bloomberg earlier reported that Meta’s technology would be shared with the Five Eyes countries.
