White House says no need to restrict ‘open-source’ artificial intelligence at least for now WHIO TV 7 and WHIO Radio [Video]

The White House is coming out in favor of “open-source” artificial intelligence technology, arguing in a report Tuesday that there’s no need right now for restrictions on companies making key components of their powerful AI systems widely available.

“We recognize the importance of open systems,” said Alan Davidson, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department, in an interview with The Associated Press.

As part of a sweeping executive order on AI last year, President Joe Biden gave the U.S. Commerce Department until July to talk to experts and come back with recommendations on how to manage the potential benefits and risks of so-called open models.

The term “open-source” comes from a decades-old practice of building software in which the code is free or widely accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon.

However, open-source AI developmentinvolves more than just code and computer scientists differ on how to define it depending on which components of …