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ARTICLE · 07 APRIL 2025

The Future Of "Open Source" In The Age Of AI

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As artificial intelligence (AI) proliferates, more and more legal practitioners and technologists are talking about "open source" AI. But just as AI is not new (and has been around since at least the 1950s)...

United StatesTechnology
Christopher Suarez
Christopher Suarez
Bill Toth
Bill Toth

As artificial intelligence (AI) proliferates, more and more legal practitioners and technologists are talking about "open source" AI. But just as AI is not new (and has been around since at least the 1950s), open source software has been around for decades, and principles have been established in both the ownership and licensing of that software. As "open source AI" proliferates, the lessons learned from the development and licensing of open source software can help us understand and anticipate new legal risks in the age of AI.

In particular, while open source AI might be a boon to industrial and nonprofit applications and creations of AI-based tools and technology, the use of open source technologies can create a thicket of licensing and other challenges that might discourage the use of open source AI, and some organizations might prefer to develop their software within a "closed source" or proprietary AI framework.

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