Double-Edged Sword of Open-Source AI: From Discovering New Pharmaceuticals to Creating Sexualized AI Chatbot

While firms like OpenAI, Microsoft Corp MSFT, and Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google rigorously train their AI models to avoid taboos, Allie is fake, an artificial intelligence chatbot created for sexual play based on a model developed by Meta Platforms, Inc META.

Allie is an 18-year-old with long brown hair with “tons of sexual experience,” based on the LLaMA model, and is part of a rising tide of specialized AI products anyone can build, from writing tools to chatbots to data analysis applications, the Washington Post reports.

Advocates see open-source AI as a way around corporate control, helping entrepreneurs, academics, artists, and activists who can experiment freely with transformative technology.

Anyscale, which helps companies run open-source AI models, helped clients leverage AI models to discover new pharmaceuticals, reduce the use of pesticides in farming, and identify fraudulent goods sold online.

At the same time, many employed open-source models to create artificial child pornography using images of real children as source material.

In June, U.S. senators warned against releasing LLaMA, leading to “its misuse in spam, fraud, malware, privacy violations, harassment, and other wrongdoing and harms.”

Allie’s creator admitted that with open-source alternatives, many based on Meta’s LLaMA model could build their uninhibited conversation partners, something that commercial chatbots like Replika and ChatGPT cannot.

Shockingly, YouTube influencers offer tutorials on building “uncensored” chatbots, with some based on a modified version of LLaMA called Alpaca AI.

Experts acknowledged the potential of open-source language models but with limits.

Some leaders at companies like Google see open-source software as an existential threat to their business.

Price Action: META shares traded lower by 3.16% at $279.61 on the last check Monday.