AI Ethics & Governance
Open Source AI
Artificial intelligence software and models whose source code, training data, or model weights are made available to the public for use, modification, and distribution.
Explanation
Open Source AI refers to the practice of sharing AI technologies openly to promote transparency, collaboration, and innovation. While traditional open source focuses on software code, Open Source AI encompasses model architectures, training datasets, and pre-trained weights. This approach allows developers to audit models for bias, fine-tune them for specific tasks, and deploy them without restrictive licensing fees. Organizations like the Open Source Initiative (OSI) are working to define specific standards for what constitutes 'open source' in the context of machine learning, as many current 'open' models only release weights without the underlying training data.