The Open Secret Of Open Washing
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
If you believe Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's AI large language model (LLM) Llama 3 is open source.
It's not, despite what he says. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) spells it out in the Open Source Definition, and Llama 3's license-with clauses on litigation and branding - flunks it on several grounds.
Meta, unfortunately, is far from unique in wanting to claim that some of its software and models are open source. Indeed, the concept has its own name: open washing.
This is a deceptive practice in which companies or organizations present their products, services, or processes as "open" when they are not truly open in the spirit of transparency, access to information, participation, and knowledge sharing. This term is modeled after "greenwashing" and was coined by Michelle Thorne, an internet and climate policy scholar, in 2009.
With the rise of AI, open washing has become commonplace, as shown in a recent study. Andreas Liesenfeld and Mark Dingemanse of Radboud University's Center for Language Studies surveyed 45 text and text-to-image models that claim to be open. The pair found that while a handful of lesser-known LLMs, such as AllenAI's OLMo and BigScience Workshop + HuggingFace with BloomZ could be considered open, most are not. Would it surprise you to know that according to the study, the big-name ones from Google, Meta, and Microsoft aren't? I didn't think so.
But why do companies do this? Once upon a time, companies avoided open source like the plague. Steve Ballmer famously proclaimed in 2001 that "Linux is a cancer," because: "The way the license is written, if you use any open source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source." But that was a long time ago. Today, open source is seen as a good thing. Open washing enables companies to capitalize on the positive perception of open source and open practices without actually committing to them. This can help improve their public image and appeal to consumers who value transparency and openness.
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