Letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo urging protection of openness and transparency in AI

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) contributed, along with other members of civil society and academia, to a letter drafted by Mozilla and the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) asking the White House and Congress to exercise great caution when considering whether and how to regulate the publication of open models.

The letter demonstrates how openness allows collaborative efforts to build, shape and test AI for the benefit of all, and speaks of the need for policy, technology and advocacy in creating a better future through trustworthiness and accountability in AI innovation. The letter highlighted three broad points of consensus about openness and transparency in AI:

• Open models can provide significant benefits to society, and policy should sustain and expand these benefits.
• Policy should be based on clear evidence of marginal risks that open models pose compared to closed models.
• Policy should consider a wide range of solutions to address well-defined marginal risks in a tailored fashion.

The letter was sent today, March 25, 2024, in advance of the Department of Commerce’s comment deadline on AI models which closes March 27. You can read the letter below and at CDT’s website.