Can AI even be open source? It's complicated
Can AI even be open source? It's complicated
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The architecture can easily be open source - as long as repo is missing just the training data. Just like there are Doom engines that are open source, even though they do not provide WAD files, which are still copyrighted. The code is there, but it is somewhat useless without the data. Analogy is not perfect, but let's assume it compiles to a single binary containing everything, maps included.
If ID Software gives you a compiled Doom with maps free to use it is freeware. If they open source the engine (they actually did), but do not release the WAD files as open source, the compiled game is not open source - it is still freeware.
It is not complicated really.
It's that simple
But then it's the tools to make the AI that are open source, not the model itself.
I think that we can't have a useful discussion on this if we don't distinguish between the source code of the training framework and the "source code" of the model itself, which is the training data set. E.g, Mistral Nemo can't be considered open source, because there is no Mistral Nemo without the training data set.
It's like with your Doom example - the Doom engine is open source, but Doom itself isn't. Unfortunately, here the analogy falls apart a bit, because there is no logic in the art assets of doom, whereas there is plenty of logic in the dataset for Mistral - enough that the devs said they don't want to disclose it for fear of competition.
This data set logic - incredibly valuable and important for the behavior of the AI, as confirmed by the devs - is why the model is not open source, even though the training framework might be.
Edit:
Another aspect is the spirit of open-source. One of the benefits of OSS is you can study the source code to determine whether the software is in compliance with various regulations - you can audit that software.
How can we audit Mistral Nemo? How can we confirm that it doesn't utilize copyrighted material to provide its answers?
> E.g, Mistral Nemo can't be considered open source, because there is no Mistral Nemo without the training data set.
Right here - that's your logical conflict. By downloading the model file, you can run it, thereby you can "have Mistral Nemo" even without having the training data, contradicting your statement -> your statement is invalid.
You're, hopefully not on purpose, misunderstanding the argument.
You can download a binary of Adobe Photoshop and run it. That doesn't make it open source.
I cannot make Mistral Nemo from just the open-sourced tools, therefore Mistral Nemo is not open source.
@dandi8 the license of Adobe Photoshop is not open-source because it specifically restricts reverse-engineering and modifications, and a lot of other things. The license of Mistral Nemo IS open-source, because it's Apache2.0, you are free to use it, study it, redistribute it, ... open-source doesn't say anything about giving you all the tools to re-create it, because that would mean they would need to give you the GPU time. "Open-source" simply means something else than what you think.
You seem to think that "open source" is just about the license and that a project is open source if you're allowed to reverse engineer it.
You have a gross misunderstanding of what OSS is, which contradicts even the Wikipedia definition, and are unwilling to educate yourself about it.
You suggest that Mistral would need to lend us their GPUs to fit the widely accepted definition of OSS, which is untrue.
You're either not a software engineer, or you have an agenda.
Because of this, I will not be continuing this conversation with you, as at this point it is just a waste of my time.