Open-Source AI isn’t always ‘open’ and free

THE most successful marketing phrase of all time may well be “artificial intelligence” (AI), since, no, computers still can’t think. What should take the No 2 spot? How about “open-source AI”?

A popular prediction about the technology’s trajectory in 2024 is that open-source AI models will catch up with proprietary ones such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. That sounds promising at first. If free AI tools become as technically capable as those provided by tech monopolies, that means someone is challenging Big Tech’s dominance of what could become the world’s most transformative technology.

Except there’s a caveat: Some of the most promising open-source AI models are not truly open or free from the control of large tech companies.