Mistral Unveils Free-to-Use AI Model with State-of-the-Art Performance
Posted: 2023-09-28
By: dwirch
Viewed: 233
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French AI startup, Mistral, which secured significant seed funding earlier this year, has unveiled its inaugural model, boasting performance that surpasses others in its category. Best of all, it's entirely free to use with no restrictions.
The Mistral 7B model is now available for download via multiple avenues, including a 13.4-gigabyte torrent. Additionally, Mistral has initiated a GitHub repository and a Discord channel to promote collaboration and address any issues.
A standout feature of this release is its Apache 2.0 license, a lenient licensing mechanism requiring just attribution. This permits anyone, from individual enthusiasts to colossal corporations, to use the model, given they can operate it locally or are ready to invest in necessary cloud resources.
Mistral 7B stands out as an advanced version of other compact language models like Llama 2, delivering similar competencies at a reduced computational cost. While foundational models like GPT-4 offer more capabilities, their accessibility is limited, primarily through APIs or remote connections.
In a recent blog post, the Mistral team stated, “Our goal is to champion the open generative AI domain and elevate open models to unparalleled standards.” They also credited their model's prowess to their intensive three-month effort, which included assembling a dedicated AI team and establishing an advanced data processing mechanism from scratch.
Interestingly, the founding team's prior experience with giants like Meta and Google DeepMind gave them an edge in developing this model.
However, it's crucial to differentiate between the model being freely accessible and it being "open source". While Mistral 7B's license is notably unrestricted, its development was backed by private funds, and the datasets and weights remain undisclosed.
Intriguingly, this seems to be Mistral's business strategy. The free model is available to all, but for those keen on a deeper dive, Mistral's commercial offering beckons. As per their post, "Our paid version will provide complete access to both weights and source codes. We're also gearing up to offer hosted solutions tailored for businesses."
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