Code Llama, a New AI Code-Writing Tool from Meta, is Released

On top of its Llama 2 big language model, Meta has launched a tool called Code Llama that it says can generate new code and debug human-written work.

Code Llama is open source and free for commercial and academic use under the same community license as Llama 2.

According to Meta, Code Llama can generate code strings from prompts or finish and debug code when directed to a specific code string. In addition to the base Code Llama model, Meta also made the Code Llama-Python for Python and the Code Llama-Instrct for understanding natural language commands available.

Each specific version of Code Llama is not interchangeable, according to Meta, and neither the standard Code Llama nor the Code Llama-Python variant is suggested for use with natural language instructions.

In a blog post, Meta stated that “Programmers are already using LLMs to assist in a variety of tasks, ranging from writing new software to debugging existing code. The goal is to make developer workflows more efficient so they can focus on the most human-centric aspects of their jobs.”

Meta claims Based on benchmark testing, Code Llama outperformed publicly accessible LLMs, however it did not specify which models it tested against. According to the company, Code Llama was able to accurately write code based on a text description and achieved a score of 53.7% on the code benchmark HumanEval.

Code Llama will be available in three sizes, with the smallest one fitting on a single GPU for more low-latency projects, according to Meta.

For a while now, code generators have aided developers in their work. With the help of OpenAI’s GPT-4, GitHub released Copilot in March to enable rapid code writing and check code. Additionally capable of updating outdated code, GitHub Copilot. Additionally, CodeWhisperer from Amazon’s AWS writes, checks, and updates code. Yes, Google offers a code-writing tool as well, but AlphaCode isn’t yet available.