6:30 p.m.
AI is often presented to the public as magic: You type a question, and an answer appears. But there is nothing magical about it. Every AI system is built from human choices: what data to use, what to measure, what to optimize, what risks to take seriously and who gets access to the results.
Today, many of the most powerful AI systems are available mainly as closed products. That isn’t good enough for science, education, public service or democratic accountability. Researchers and communities need more than access to a chatbot. They need open AI infrastructure: the data, code, training methods, documentation, evaluations and intermediate models that make it possible to understand how these systems work and to build new ones for public purposes.
In this talk, Noah Smith will describe examples of building AI in the open. He will argue that open infrastructure is essential if universities, nonprofits, governments and scientific communities are going to use AI responsibly and creatively. The goal is not to reproduce commercial AI but to make room for a broader, healthier, more public-minded AI ecosystem.