Open Questions On Open Weights

Last month, some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies signed an open letter supporting open-weights AI.Open weights AI is like open-source software, where the creator makes the raw code publicly available for free download. It’s good insofar as it’s the only way an AI can truly be the user’s property, as opposed to something that companies like OpenAI or Anthropic temporarily let you use subject to their corporate guidelines and increasingly-nanny-state-like restrictions. If AI becomes the linchpin of the future, open weights AI feels like the sort of thing that could be the difference between being free yeomen vs. corporate serfs.It’s bad insofar as it removes the possibility of gatekeeping and lets criminals commit crimes with it. Open weights AI could be used for hacking, child pornography, harassment, or terrorism (obviously the weights can’t commit the terrorism themselves, but they could give bomb-making or bioweapon-making advice). Since AIs have gotten very good - maybe…