Welcome to Deep Dive AI

Welcome to Deep Dive: AI, an online event from the Open Source Initiative. We’ll be exploring how Artificial Intelligence impacts Open Source software, from developers to businesses to the rest of us.

Algorithms are nothing new. The concept of problem-solving procedures in math has been around since the Babylonians. It can be as simple as an “if, then” statement. Artificial Intelligence, by contrast, is a configuration of algorithms that can self-modify and create new algorithms in response to learned inputs and data.

With AI, there’s now a layer of abstraction where it’s not clear who is doing the computing, who can see it or how the user can modify that behavior if the results are unfair or unsatisfactory. Many of these AIs are complex, powerful black boxes that, as it stands, no one can examine. Or trust.

This is where what has long been considered useful quickly turns into any number of nightmare scenarios: people denied bail, housing, credit, your face is imposed on the body of a porn actress …The stuff that makes lots of spooky sci-fi movies.

Why is the OSI leading this conversation?

When the Open Source movement started, we imagined a world where the users were empowered, granted rights and freedoms to shape the technology. We encoded those rights and freedoms into the Open Source Definition that has served the community as a north star for over two decades, creating a huge, thriving ecosystem.

With AI systems being so complex, concepts like “program” or “source code” in the Open Source Definition are challenged in new and surprising ways.

The topic of AI is huge. For Open Source Initiative’s Deep Dive, we’ll be looking at how AI could affect  the future of Open Source.

Deep Dive: AI is an event in three parts: we start with a podcast series where we interview experts in different fields, from legal to academia, developers and policy experts. We’ll then have four panel discussions with more experts in October, and finally in the last months of 2022 we’ll publish a report to summarize what we’ve learned. Deep Dive: AI will lay the foundation to better understand what an Open Source AI should look like.

Signup for the podcast now on your favorite app (if we missed one, please let us know) or directly from the source.

Deep Dive: AI is made possible by the generous support of OSI individual members and sponsors. Donate or become a member of the OSI today.

Listen to the teaser now and subscribe to the series on your favorite app (did we miss any? Let us know!)