Shamar @Shamar@qoto.org

Schneier joins the criticism of "Open Source" AI:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/11/ai-industry-is-trying-to-subvert-the-definition-of-open-source-ai.html

#osaid

Hello dear K-9 users!

You probably got a suggested updated for K-9 to "Thunderbird Beta for Testers".

This is just a metadata issue, which displays a wrong name and icon. The update itself is K-9 in version 8.0. You don't get automatically switched over to Thunderbird.

This will probably be fixed in the next index update.

In other news: Thunderbird for Android is available now on #FDroid (as a new separate app) ;)

Latest NASA global temperature data.
Earth has never been hotter since Homo sapiens (we) discovered agriculture in the early Holocene. Likely even since the Eemian interglacial 120.000 years ago.
Fossil coal, oil and gas emissions caused it.
We need to stop making it worse.
Yes, we can if we want to.

Buondì

Community Commitment to Open Source Definition

https://opensourcedeclaration.org

#ai #opensource #opensource_llm

I remember Google+, and the idee fixe and mad hype around it. (Google was afraid of Facebook.) G+ was a ghost town. But for the first year or so the G+ team reported astronomical engagement numbers. Huhh?

Finally we learned they were counting every G+ notification dropped at the top of Gmail as an "engagement."

Anyway, I wonder how they're measuring this...

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-earnings-q3-2024-new-code-created-by-ai-2024-10

Ospedali o cannoni? Scuole o cannoni? Cannoni o democrazia? "In Cina o Russia l’investimento militare va a cascata su strutture legate allo Stato e al potere. In Occidente invece trasferisce enormi fondi pubblici ai grandi interessi privati. Le multinazionali delle armi hanno tra i principali azionisti le società globali dei fondi: #Blackrock, #Vanguard, #StateStreet, #Kkr. Questi colossi si stanno comprando pezzi d’Italia e sono anche i veri padroni delle aziende di #armi. Anche l’Italia sta finendo in quest’orbita: il governo Meloni ha dato via libera a Blackrock per entrare in Leonardo sopra il 3% senza esercitare il golden power. Così i grandi fondi danno soldi ai governi comprando pezzi di Paese ma poi chiedono un ritorno, fanno affari con le armi e coi guadagni poi comprano altri pezzi di Paese. Entra in casa chi poi comanderà alla faccia della democrazia, come già avviene negli Usa e in Gran Bretagna." https://archive.is/7r4zT

@hipsterelectron

#Debian classify the kind of #AI systems that the #OSI's #OSAID defines as #opensource, as #ToxicCandy: https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team/ml-policy/-/blob/master/ML-Policy.rst

Without training data you cannot ecercise the freedom to study a #ML system and your ability to modify it is severely limited to fine tuning.

Which is like to say that windows is open source because you can tweak the registry.

For these reasons some open source developers are already moving beyond OSI: https://opensourcedeclaration.org

You are welcome to join!

It's not just matter of securing the #OSD, but to update it with a truly open process, with all developers, artists, musicians, data scientists... who contribute their time and valuable skills to open source: https://opensourcedefinition.org/wip/

@mawhrin @tante @biocrusoe

"Still, it’s unclear whether “Just Go Independent” is a sustainable career path for the number of journalists who we need to have a functioning society. But I do know that relying on the passing interest of billionaires to keep journalism alive is not sustainable. And I know that 250,000 subscribers could fund a lot of independent journalists."

(Original title: The Billionaire Is the Threat, Not the Solution)

https://www.404media.co/the-billionaire-is-the-threat-not-the-solution/

They posit you can still modify (tune) the distributed models without the training source. You can also modify a binary executable without its source code. Frankly that's unacceptable if we actually care about the human beings using the software.

A key pillar of freedom as it relates to software is reproducibility. The ability to build a tool from scratch, in your own environment, with your own parameters, is absolutely indispensable to both learning how the tool works and changing the tool to better serve your needs, especially if your needs fall on the outskirts of the bell curve.

There's also the issue of auditability. If you can't run the full build process yourself, producing your own results from scratch in a trusted environment to compare with what's distributed, it becomes exponentially harder to verify any claims about how a tool supposedly works.

Without the training data, this all becomes impossible for AI models. The OSI knows this. They're choosing to ignore it for the sake of expediency for the companies paying their bills, who want to claim "open" because it sounds good while actually hiding the (largely stolen and fraudulently or non-consentually acquired) source material of their current models.

Do we want a new definition of "open source" that actively thwarts analysis and tinkering, two fundamental requirements of software that respects human beings today? Reject this nonsense.

#OpenSource #OpenSourceAI #OSI #OpenSourceInitiative #FreeSoftware #AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI