Open Source AI

The Walled Garden vs. The Public Park

• Closed Source (Proprietary): Like a restaurant with a secret recipe. You can eat the food, but you can't know how it's made or cook it at home.
  • Examples: GPT-4 (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), Claude (Anthropic).
• Open Source (Open Weights): Like a community cookbook. Everyone can see the recipe, copy it, and change it.
  • Examples: Llama (Meta), Mistral, Stable Diffusion.

What are "Weights"?

When we say an AI is "Open Source," we usually mean the Weights are public.
The "Weights" are the file that contains everything the AI has learned. It's the AI's brain.
If you have the weights, you can run the AI on your own computer, without internet, and without paying a company.

Why It Matters

1.  **Privacy**: If you run the AI yourself, no company sees your data.
2.  **Control**: You can change the AI to do exactly what you want (Fine-tuning).
3.  **Safety**: Researchers can look inside the code to find bugs or dangers.

The Trade-off

• Closed Models are usually smarter and easier to use (just visit a website).
• Open Models require technical skill to set up, but they give you freedom and privacy.

Conclusion

The future of AI is a mix of both. Big companies will offer powerful services, while the open-source community builds tools that belong to everyone.