Some see open source AI as a way out of the familiar quagmire of proprietary software that the technology inevitably finds itself mired in. Irene Solaiman of Hugging Face and Ali Farhadi of AI2 will discuss this complex issue during a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, taking place in San Francisco from October 28-30.
AI may be a very new technology in some ways, but in other ways it's stuck in the past, with a few decades-old companies pulling the strings and upfront funding. But unlike a desktop OS or office suite, the resource requirements of AI models make open source alternatives very difficult. What will it take to change that?
To discuss the possibilities and challenges of defining, creating, and providing access to open AI systems, we hosted leaders from two organizations that are advocates of openness: Hugging Face, which provides open access to models, leaderboards, and datasets, and AI2 (short for Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence), a research institute committed to full transparency of data, training, and models.
Eileen Solaiman is Global Policy Head at Hugging Faith, where she works with the organization and other tech groups to advance and research safe, open and responsible AI. Ali Farhadi's AI2 spinoff, XNOR, was acquired by Apple, after which he returned to lead the organization. Both are advocates of openness and transparency, but also recognize the new structural barriers we face in embodying these principles in AI.
The conversations between these leading AI innovators (and me as moderator) will undoubtedly be very interesting, so be sure to grab your tickets to Disrupt 2024 and join us on the AI stage.