Should AI be open source?

Should the normal person have access to open source AI models in the growing AI world?

Simply put: Yes.

As we continue to see the large transparency presented by major players in the software world, like Elon Musk releasing the Twitter algorithm to boost their public image. More and more people are being subjected to the conversation of the importance of open source software.

It is crucial to understand what OSS (Open Source software) is and why it is crucial in the world of programmers and the general population.

In the domain of software development, OSS is produced with its source code publicly accessible, allowing any interested party to see, modify, and distribute it. Basically, it is a decentralized and collaborative route to software development.

Just to name a few of the big players in the world of OSS: Linux, WordPress, Mozilla Firefox, and VLC media player are some of the well-known examples.

Why open source is so important is simply because allowing anybody to access, and evaluate the source code increases the overall security and stability by allowing developers and security professionals to find and repair bugs and security vulnerabilities more rapidly.

This gives the power of moderation of these complex structures into the hands of tach-savvy individuals that are able to ensure the safety and transparency of the programs they are passionate about.

When we ask the question: Should AI be Open Source? We have to look at the importance of AI in the modern world.

AI will and has already proven to be a tremendous opportunity for economic development, and with any growing technology it is vital that everyone has the opportunity to modify and understand how these systems work.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers (the second-largest accounting firm in the world) published their research concerning their prediction of the economic impact of AI in the professional world.

According to our analysis, global GDP will be up to 14% higher in 2030 as a result of the accelerating development and take-up of AI — the equivalent of an additional $15.7 trillion. The economic impact of AI will be driven by:

1. Productivity gains from businesses automating processes (including use of robots and autonomous vehicles).

2. Productivity gains from businesses augmenting their existing labour force with AI technologies (assisted and augmented intelligence).

3. Increased consumer demand resulting from the availability of personalised and/or higher-quality

You can read more from the PWC report here: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/analytics/assets/pwc-ai-analysis-sizing-the-prize-report.pdf

As AI works it’s way in the professional world, is tremendously important that the general population can ensure that large players like OpenAI, MidJourney, Google Bard, Etc. are meeting the standards that we apply on them. Because, the individual will be directly effected, and most likely will be come a common place in our lives.

Should these companies direct the economic impact of AI, or should the general populous?

We must also consider the major political impacts of AI.

One of the key aspects of large AI models is their ability to abstract away the complexity of vast amounts of data, allowing an end user to make very swift decisions based on the result of an AI model.

AI-based tools will transform the decision making of civil servants for maximum impact, and this includes the optimisation of text to human readers.

Rob Willer, a professor sociology, psychology, and organizational behavior in the Standford School of Humanities and Sciences and director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab, used GPT-3 to craft persuasive messages on varying controversial topics.

They then had humans write their personal opinions before reading any other text, and then were randomly assigned a persuasive text written by either a human or GPT-3. Then, the same participants would write their thoughts afterwards as well.

The AI-generated messages were “consistently persuasive to human readers.” Not only were they considered to be persuasive on all topics, but they were at least as persuasive statistically as the human-generated messages across all the topics.

When they asked the participants to describe the qualities of the texts they had read. AI ranked consistently as more factual and logical, less angry, and less reliant upon storytelling as a persuasive technique.

The authors of the paper worry about the potential for harm in a political context. The possibility of ill-intentioned domestic and foreign actors using these tools to create mis- or disinformation campaigns are a real concern for the political uses of AI-based tools. Especially considering they are proven to be effective at persuasive writing.

Willer said for a Standford Article,

“Clearly, AI has reached a level of sophistication that raises some high-stakes questions for policy- and lawmakers that demand their attention, AI has the potential to influence political discourse, and we should get out in front of these issues from the start.”

If we as user of AI-based tools are able to step in-front of these issues, we can protect ourselves in the growing reliance on AI.

Technology as useful and applicable to everyday life should be subjected to scrutiny by the population, and if not we lose the ability to protect our economic and political reaches.

The economic study by the US-EU Trade and Technology Council Inaugural Joint Statement sums up the concern, but fails to mention OSS.

AI is a fast-evolving technology with great potential to make workers more productive, to make firms more efficient, and to spur innovations in new products and services. At the same time, AI can also be used to automate existing jobs and exacerbate inequality, and it can lead to discrimination against workers. While previous technological advances in automation have tended to affect “routine” tasks, AI has the potential to automate “nonroutine” tasks, exposing large new swaths of the workforce to potential disruption. The challenge for policymakers is to foster progress and innovation in AI while shielding workers and consumers from potential types of harm that could arise.

You can read more of the report here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/TTC-EC-CEA-AI-Report-12052022-1.pdf

As Linus Torvalds (The lead developer of the Linux Kernal) says,

In real open source, you have the right to control your own destiny.

As developers its vitally important that we understand and provide our input on the power of these tools, and their ability to drastically change the status quo.

If professionals are not able to see the how to engine functions then how are they able to determine its efficacy, and its fairness.