The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has finally released its official definition of open source AI, marking a significant milestone in the development of artificial intelligence. The Open Source AI Definition (OSAID) is the result of years of collaboration with academia and industry experts, aiming to provide a standard for determining whether an AI model is truly open source.

According to the OSAID, an AI model must provide sufficient information about its design and training data to allow others to substantially recreate it. The model must also disclose details about its training data, including provenance, processing, and licensing. Additionally, open source AI models must grant users the freedom to use, modify, and build upon the model without restrictions.

The OSI hopes that the OSAID will help policymakers and developers understand what constitutes open source AI, promoting transparency and collaboration in the field. While the OSI lacks enforcement mechanisms, it plans to flag models that misrepresent themselves as open source, relying on community pressure to correct such abuses.

The release of the OSAID comes as many tech giants, including Meta, have been criticized for misusing the term "open source" to describe their AI models. Meta's Llama models, for instance, require special licenses for large-scale commercial use, contradicting the OSI's definition.

The OSAID's impact will be closely watched, particularly in the context of ongoing lawsuits and regulatory efforts surrounding AI development. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, the OSI's definition is poised to play a crucial role in shaping the future of open source AI.