Apple quietly released an open source multimodal LLM in October

Researchers from Apple and Columbia University have released an open source multimodal Large Language Model (LLM) called Ferret. The release, which includes the code and weights for research use only, has been largely overlooked until recently. Apple's entry into the open source LLM landscape is significant, especially given the company's reputation as a "walled garden". The company also announced a breakthrough in deploying LLMs on iPhones, introducing new techniques for 3D avatars and efficient language model inference.

The news of Apple's open source and local ML developments comes as both Anthropic and OpenAI are reportedly negotiating massive new funding raises for their proprietary LLM development efforts. The move by Apple is seen as a strategic one to compete with models like ChatGPT without becoming dependent on a cloud provider like Microsoft or Google.

Key takeaways

Apple and Columbia University researchers released an open source multimodal Large Language Model (LLM) called Ferret in October 2023.
Apple has made a breakthrough in deploying LLMs on iPhones, introducing new techniques for 3D avatars and efficient language model inference.
Apple's move into the open source LLM landscape is seen as significant given its traditional 'walled garden' approach.
Anthropic and OpenAI are reportedly negotiating massive new funding raises for their proprietary LLM development efforts.

Apple quietly released an open source multimodal LLM in October

Key takeaways

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