As AI companies compete for market dominance, a group of tech giants led by IBM and Meta has formed a new organization, the AI Alliance, to work with each other instead of against. The companies announced on Tuesday the goal of supporting transparent innovation and responsible development in artificial intelligence.
The AI Alliance aims to prioritize safety, collaboration, diversity, economic opportunity, and benefits to all, IBM and Meta said in a joint statement. According to the alliance, the group represents over $80 billion in combined annual research and development funds.
And while many members support open-source development, the model is not a requirement for membership.
“The AI Alliance brings together researchers, developers, and companies to share tools and knowledge that can help us all make progress whether models are shared openly or not,” President of Global Affairs of Meta Nick Clegg said. “We’re looking forward to working with partners to advance the state-of-the-art in AI and help everyone build responsibly.”
Joining IBM and Meta in the AI Alliance are over 50 tech companies, including AMD, Dell Technologies, Red Hat, Sony Group, Hugging Face, Stability AI, Oracle, and the Linux Foundation.
"The progress we continue to witness in AI is a testament to open innovation and collaboration across communities of creators, scientists, academics, and business leaders," IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna added. "This is a pivotal moment in defining the future of AI."
The AI Alliance, IBM and Meta explained, will establish a governing board and technical oversight committee dedicated to advancing AI projects and establishing standards and guidelines, partnering with governments, non-profits, and non-government organizations (NGOs) working in the AI industry.
Looking to engage the academic community, the AI Alliance also includes several educational and research institutions, including CERN, NASA, Cleveland Clinic, Cornell University, Dartmouth, Imperial College London, University of California Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Notre Dame, The University of Tokyo, and Yale University.
"Open innovation is all but essential to ensuring equitable access and collaboration around AI and root this technology in principles that adhere to the strongest standards of diversity, trust, and ingenuity,” NASA chief science data officer Kevin Murphy said.
Meta has championed open-source AI models and responsible development, but in November, however, the company dissolved its responsible AI team in a move to decentralize and streamline AI development.
Notably absent from the AI Alliance are leading AI developers Microsoft, Google, ChatGPT developer OpenAI, and Claude AI’s Anthropic, who announced the launch of their own group dedicated to responsible AI, The Frontier Forum, in July.
Earlier this year, the Biden Administration met with leading AI developers to sign a pledge to develop artificial intelligence responsibly, including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Anthropic, Meta, and Inflection. In September, NVIDIA, IBM, Scale AI, Adobe, IBM, Palantir, Salesforce, and Stability AI signed onto the pledge.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.