US crackdown on top AI fuels open-source surge
The U.S. government's shock moves to restrict access to top artificial intelligence systems from Anthropic and OpenAI have sparked growing interest in open-source models — especially ones from China.
The de facto bans from an anti-regulation White House blindsided the tech world, which had grown accustomed to AI labs releasing ever more powerful models with nary a worry of government intervention.
The episode has thrust a long-simmering debate to the fore: open versus closed AI.
Most of the best-known AI models — like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude — are "closed," meaning the company keeps the underlying code and data locked away.
