Creating a public counterpoint for AI

Mozilla is releasing a vision for Public AI, a robust ecosystem of initiatives that promote public goods, public orientation and public use throughout every step of AI development and deployment. Read the paper here.

Look around. There are buses driving alongside cars on the road. Some of your packages are delivered by private couriers, others are delivered by the national postal service. You can flip the channel on your TV back and forth between public broadcasting and commercial networks. And when you access the internet, you can choose between a commercial or nonprofit-backed web browser.

Private and public initiatives have existed side by side for a long time. While private innovation often pushes the frontier of what's possible, public alternatives can make those innovations more accessible and beneficial for everyone. These parallel products and services give people more choices, create market pressure on each other to be more trustworthy and innovative, distribute power across more people and organizations, and create more resilient and healthier economies.

So, where are the public alternatives for AI? They are starting to emerge, with some governments subsidizing access to computational resources, and nonprofit AI labs collectively putting nearly $1 billion into open source AI research and models. These are important steps forward, but they are not enough to create true public alternatives to the results of the hundreds of billions of dollars going into private AI. This status quo means some critical projects -such as using AI to detect illegal mining operations, facilitate deliberative democracy, and match cancer patients to clinical trials - remain under-resourced relative to their potential societal value. In parallel, Big Tech is ramping up efforts to push policymakers to support private AI infrastructure, which could further cement the dominance of just a few companies in creating the future of AI.

We can't just rely on a few companies to build everything our society needs from AI - and we can't afford the risk that they won't.

Today, we are unveiling a bold vision with a sweeping action plan for Public AI. Mozilla is calling for a robust ecosystem of initiatives that promote public goods, public orientation, and public use throughout every step of AI development and deployment. It's not enough for some AI resources to be more accessible, or for companies to support a few token AI for good" side projects. We need a whole parallel AI ecosystem that can run on non-commercial incentives, where openness enables projects to build on top of each other, and where the total scope of these initiatives is a meaningful counterweight to the private AI ecosystem.

We are calling on everyone to help shape Public AI. Developers should create open source AI models and tools that are competitive with private AI initiatives; policymakers should support the data, tools and workforce development to make AI truly usable for public interest applications; and the public should support the products and services that emerge from Public AI by contributing data, engagement and support to this ecosystem.

At Mozilla, we're committed to doing our part by building key parts of the Public AI ecosystem. We will help build public alternatives for the data needed in AI development by doubling down on our Common Voice platform, further expanding access to multilingual voice data to train AI models that represent the diversity of languages around the world. We will invest in open source AI via Mozilla.ai, Mozilla Ventures and Mozilla Builders, which supports the development of tools like llamafile that are making it easier to run AI models locally rather than needing to use commercial cloud providers. And we will continue to support the broader AI accountability ecosystem that is vital for Public AI, continuing to steer our fellowships and data programs toward enabling more people to steer and co-create AI.

We believe this work can only be done in partnership with developers, policymakers, academics, civil society, companies and the public at large. That's why we'll also continue making grants through the Mozilla Technology Fund to support open-source AI projects that are building Public AI applications, and we'll also fund more research about the impacts of Public AI. We'll keep bringing together stakeholders and experts to explore how to make Public AI components more accessible and ethical. We will also keep working with policymakers to make the case for Public AI, starting with a workshop we are co-hosting with our partners this week in Washington D.C., and continuing with our engagement on this topic at next year's AI Action Summit in Paris, France.

This is a core part of Mozilla's broader work to empower everyone and every community to shape, enjoy and trust AI. Earlier this year, we released a paper, Accelerating Progress Toward Trustworthy AI, that outlined our broader vision on AI, and invited public comment. When we publish our final Trustworthy AI paper in the coming months, Public AI will be named as an explicit pillar in our overall strategy for AI.

If we get this right, we can create an AI ecosystem that expands opportunity for everyone. Come join us in making this a reality.

The post Creating a public counterpoint for AI appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.