White House says no need to restrict 'open-source' AI at least for now

https://www.wdtn.com/news/business/ap-business/ap-white-house-says-no-need-to-restrict-open-source-artificial-intelligence-at-least-for-now/

by plinkplonk • 2 years ago

61 51 2 years ago

wdtn.com

rvnx4• 2 years ago

Might change after getting lobbying checks from Google, Microsoft and Apple.

talldayo7• 2 years ago

Why? All three of those companies have an obvious and outspoken commitment to releasing models for free, they aren't trying to manipulate fear to sell a product like OpenAI.

chatmasta2• 2 years ago

Microsoft is invested in OpenAI. Have they released any open weight models themselves?

Apple is similarly partnering with OpenAI.

Google has released nerfed versions of its Gemini models (Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B).

It seems the only company truly setting an example for open weights is Meta. Hopefully the other companies realize that it’s in their best interest to do the same (as it seems Google is begrudgingly realizing with its nerfed releases).

Eventually open weights will win, and if OpenAI (the most ironically named company) continues to rely on closed models as its moat, it will lose.

yjk• 2 years ago

Really makes me wonder what the angle here is for them. With open source, I can somewhat understand given market standards become easier to hire for and you get feedback on your tooling. It seems unlikely that either will be true for open-weight models. It also seems unlikely they would be able to establish market domination and then increase prices if everything remains open.

laweijfmvo• 2 years ago

Would love to hear the White House explain to me what Open-Source AI is, in their own words.

talldayo7• 2 years ago

Seems pretty clear to me they're using it colloquialism for freely distributed weights.

jimsimmons• 2 years ago

Is that "umm ackshually .." bit really worth doing here?

Open weights vs training code is not a distinction worth drawing for the average person

burkaman2• 2 years ago

This sounds sarcastic, but as is often the case the White House has quite competent people working on this who have put a lot of thought into it already: https://www.ntia.gov/federal-register-notice/2024/dual-use-f...

Unfortunately it's past the deadline for you to add your own comments on this, but I'm sure there will be future RFCs if you have thoughts.

jahewson• 2 years ago

In the spirit of this pedantry I’d like to point out that the NTIA is not the White House.

bravetraveler2• 2 years ago

Piling bodies, sorry - creating committees never impedes an effort. Nuh uh, never! That was sarcastic.

Here's a bit of help for them, development happens with our help or not. For every regulated repository that's removed, there's a mirror/fork.

I don't really have a point... just having a little fun at the expense of the latest thing in the harbor. I'll honestly stay apprised

stonethrowaway• 2 years ago

See my comment here on FBs strategic positioning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41090142

Updated link.

sandworm101• 2 years ago

Better question: Is it possible to restrict open source AI?

If it is open then everyone has access. Any restrictions would be akin to demanding that linux not use strong encryption or firefox implement content censorship.

Legend2440• 2 years ago

Until 1996 they did put restrictions on strong encryption, and everyone had to implement weak 40-bit encryption.

perihelions• 2 years ago

Those restrictions were unconstitutional for the entire duration they were in effect.

michaelt• 2 years ago

It hasn't proven possible yet but who knows what will be developed the future?

A lot of open source efforts depend on big companies training million-dollar models and giving them away. These companies will often apply some censoring adjustment to the weights, which the open source community then undoes through fine tuning.

But perhaps in the future new methods of censorship will be developed, which are radically harder to undo?

And of course, there's always heavy-handed options available - if we can require hairdressers to hold professional licenses, we could require the same of anyone who wants to upload to huggingface or civitai.

grumpyinfosec• 2 years ago

Its possible to restrict DIY building of pretty much anything if your end goal was to stop people from doing something outside of their basement with it. I can't build my own open source coal fired power plant and except to sell power without the EPA coming to kill me. Same would be if i used a open source AI that violated some new consumer protection / anti fraud law if i choose to use it over the public internet / build it into a product. Hell you could probably go after the devs for being accessory if you really wanted to.

The license really does nothing to protect your project from regulation its just that the government doesn't care about open source yet.

p0w3n3d• 2 years ago

Intel Management Engine bug to find those computers which are using the free model?

OldGreenYodaGPT• 2 years ago

Regulating open-source AI will only help giants like Google and OpenAI, stifling innovation. It creates barriers only they can afford, limiting competition and diversity. Open-source fosters transparency and rapid progress. We do not need government regulations, or we'll end up like Europe with China leading.

talldayo7• 2 years ago

It creates barriers only they can afford, limiting competition and diversity.

I would argue this is inherent to the training and compute cost of all large language models.

binary1323• 2 years ago

Quantized Llama 3.1 can run on an Amazon GPU instance for $32/hr now

anon3738392• 2 years ago

Small models can be fine-tuned to perform specific tasks with similar accuracy to large models. Small models can be served for internal use with a VERY modest hardware outlay.

There are also providers now that will let you upload low-rank adapters you have trained in top of open foundational models, so that you can use their efficient serverless infrastructure with your fine-tuned models. This requires even less capital.

None of this would exist had OpenAI’s vision of centralized, locked-down API access become the reality.

b112• 2 years ago

Comrade, open source is the wellspring of communism!

(As Microsoft explained years ago)

splwjs• 2 years ago

that doesn't explain why the white house doesn't see the need to regulate it - if anything it gives them more reason to.

GauntletWizard• 2 years ago

The problem is that the OSI's definition of "Open Source" AI doesn't match their definition of "Open Source" software, or really anything.

anon3738392• 2 years ago

I think all of the hand-wringing about open weights vs. open source, and which term to use, is an ideological point people are getting stuck on. I don’t think it’s a real problem.

MP_1729• 2 years ago

Good. Effective Austruism is trying to destroy democratic institutions and it's likely a bigger threat to society than fascism. The pro-progress people needs to organize themselves to stop types like SBF from giving AI to China.

didntcheck• 2 years ago

Can you elaborate on what you're referring to?

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Source: https://apnews.com/article/ai-open-source-white-house-f62009...

bananapub• 2 years ago

fascinating how successful the bullshit rebranding of "sometimes we upload a TB file of weights" as "open source" has gone for them politically. I can't really imagine they thought it would go this well. will be interesting to see how this unexpected boon of a loophole will change their strategy, particularly """OpenAI""", who didn't think to do give themselves enough cover.

_fat_santa• 2 years ago

Say the government actually wanted to regulate open source AI, how exactly would they do that?

If the govt wants to regulate commercial AI, they can do that by going to the companies responsible for building that AI and say "do X, Y and Z or else we will punish you with A, B or C". But what do you say to a collective of developers that could be all around the globe? What stops that group from just saying "F* You" and continuing on?

war321• 2 years ago

Ya love to see it.

White House says no need to restrict 'open-source' AI at least for now

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