Pet a llama

Hi, it’s Priya in San Francisco. The artificial intelligence industry has a new, unofficial mascot. But first...Three things you need to kno [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi, it’s Priya in San Francisco. The artificial intelligence industry has a new, unofficial mascot. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Audacy will cut 25% of [podcast employees]( • SAP staff criticized [back-to-office policy]( • Nicotine pouches gain popularity with [office workers]( Herd mentality At an artificial intelligence meetup last year on San Francisco’s Embarcadero waterfront, llamas roamed the concrete. At another event in Paris, a llama sported a cloth featuring the logo of Hugging Face Inc., an AI startup. Intel Corp. passed out stuffed llamas at an AI conference in November. The animal has become something of an unofficial mascot for the open-source AI movement, thanks mostly to Meta Platform Inc.’s AI product called Llama, an acronym for Large Language Model Meta AI. Competing LLMs from OpenAI and Google are closed source, meaning their owners control the architecture and prevent developers from rewriting the underlying code. That’s helped Meta’s Llama gain momentum. The company has [said]( its generative AI and open-source models have been downloaded over 100 million times. One unexpected consequence of Meta’s quirky name is the heightened demand for live llama rentals. George Caldwell, 75, has run an animal care facility in Sonora, California, called Llamas of Circle Home for 40 years. He learned about the AI industry’s enthusiasm for his animals last year when he was asked to bring three of them to the pier in San Francisco for an event. He chose Mystical Amigo, Yanantin and Yachay. At the AI meetup, Caldwell’s llamas kept attendees occupied while waiting in line to enter talks. He provided brushes for attendees to comb the llamas’ fur. Caldwell later was asked to bring his llamas to another AI meetup, in Berkeley, California. After that he decided, “if it’s a party type of thing, that’s not something I’m really interested in.” “You’ve got people going by with motorcycles, revving up,” he said. “It’s tough duty for some llamas. Luckily my llamas are used to things. But I don’t necessarily want to put them in those places.” Caldwell said he raises his llamas to provide therapeutic or mental health benefits for those who need them. “I want to put them in places where they could be more appreciated and people have a chance to connect with them,” he said. He appreciates that the AI industry has taken an interest in the animals he’s dedicated his life to raising and promoting. But he doesn’t think he’ll be involved going forward. “Just some people in AI having a party in some place that’s not appropriate for llamas, I’m not interested in that.” Omar Sanseviero, an executive at Hugging Face who uses the title chief Llama officer, was sympathetic to the animal welfare concerns. “I’m not sure if it’ll happen again because from an animal point of view, having llamas in the middle of the city is probably not the best environment for them.” Conference goers may have to make do with stuffed animals. —[Priya Anand](mailto:panand20@bloomberg.net) The big story SpaceX’s Starship rocket won a contract to launch Starlab, a commercial space station. Operated and built by [companies partnered with NASA](, Starlab is one of many private orbiting space stations being developed for research and commerce in the coming decade. One to watch [Watch the Bloomberg Technology TV interview]( with one of the lawyers for the Tesla shareholder that defeated Elon Musk’s pay package. 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