We are yet again at the cusp of a new technological wave that will completely change the way how society functions. It is safe to say that we are finally in the AI revolution and it will literally change everything.
With every new technology comes regulation. Questions start to arise such as how will it impact society? How can we manage this technology so that it doesn’t get into the wrong hands?
These questions are then drafted to heads of government who will then have to answer these difficult questions and find a viable solution to the problem. Nuclear technology was one such technology that was highly regulated with tight oversight, there have been wars that have been fought over the fears that a country might develop nuclear weapons.
With artificial intelligence, we are now at a crossroads wondering how can we regulate this technology. I am seeing continuous evidence that Big Tech might want to have a tightened regulatory market for AI due to the fact that the open-source community is literally giving them a run for their money.
Yes, it’s fair to say that large technology companies are responsible for training these models and bringing some of them open-source.
It’s the open-source community though that is responsible for innovating on top of these technologies and making them better and sometimes even into a viable product.
It seems that OpenAI and other players in the industry are looking to secure their lead in the space with additional regulation. We all know how powerful Google, Amazon, and others are in Congress as they have deep pockets and can order lobbyists to do their bidding for them. It has happened before and it will happen again.
Despite the upcoming regulation at some point in the future, I am inclined to believe that it is hard to regulate these technologies. The models are already out in the wild and almost anybody can download them on their local computer and hack away at them. If they remove them from these open-source communities they will go underground.
It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of regulation they decide to come up with over the next few months or years.
