## The LLama Effect: How an Accidental Leak Sparked a Series of Impressive Open Source Alternatives to ChatGPT The friction between open source and API-based distribution is one of the most interesting battles looming in the generative AI ecosystem. In the text-to-image domain, the release of Stable Diffusion clearly signaled that open source was a viable distribution mechanism for foundational models. However, the same cannot be said in the large language model (LLM) space, in which the biggest breakthroughs are coming from models like GPT-4, Claude, and Cohere, which are only available via APIs. The open source alternatives to these models haven’t shown the same level of performance, specifically in their ability to follow human instructions. However, an unexpected research breakthrough and a leaked release are starting to change that.