That does seem awfully convenient, yes. But I am also skeptical that Meta is railing against regulation out of their commitment to protect scrappy little startups doing AI...
The gap between Meta and other proprietary ai ecosystems (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic) is pretty large. Meta necessarily is only as far behind as open source as a whole is behind.
If open source catches up, Meta can ride the tailwind and also catch up. I'm sure Meta will flip its position once it doesn't feel outclassed by the competition.
I honestly don't see the cynical motive I know is there in what Facebook is doing, releasing Llama. I am down to that they just want to screw with Microsoft for buying "OpenAI", which is fine by me.
If open source catches up, Meta can ride the tailwind and also catch up. I'm sure Meta will flip its position once it doesn't feel outclassed by the competition.