VentureBeat/Midjourney

As tech giants declare their AI releases open — and even put the word in their names — the once insider term “open source” has burst into the modern zeitgeist. During this precarious time in which one company’s misstep could set back the public’s comfort with AI by a decade or more, the concepts of openness and transparency are being wielded haphazardly, and sometimes dishonestly, to breed trust. 

At the same time, with the new White House administration taking a more hands-off approach to tech regulation, the battle lines have been drawn — pitting innovation against regulation and predicting dire consequences if the “wrong” side prevails. 

There is, however, a third way that has been tested and proven through other waves of technological change. Grounded in the principles of openness and transparency, true open source collaboration unlocks faster rates of innovation even as it empowers the industry to develop technology that is unbiased, ethical and beneficial to society. 

Understanding the power of true open source collaboration

Put simply, open-source software features freely available source code that can be viewed, modified, dissected, adopted and shared for commercial and noncommercial purposes — and historically, it has been monumental in breeding innovation. Open-source offerings Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP, for ...