The Happy Few: Open Source AI (part two)

Computer Says Maybe

In part two of our episode on open source AI, we delve deeper into we can use openness and participation for sustainable AI governance. It’s clear that everyone agrees that things like the proliferation of harmful content is a huge risk — but what we cannot seem to agree on is how to eliminate this risk.

Alix is joined again by Mark Surman, and this time they both take a closer look at the work Audrey Tang did as Taiwan’s first digital minister, where she successfully built and implemented a participatory framework that allowed the people of Taiwan to directly inform AI policy.

We also hear more from Merouane Debbah, who built the first LLM trained in Arabic, and highlights the importance of developing AI systems that don’t follow rigid western benchmarks.

Mark Surman has spent three decades building a better internet, from the advent of the web to the rise of artificial intelligence. As President of Mozilla, a global nonprofit backed technology company that does everything from making Firefox to advocating for a more open, equitable internet, Mark’s current focus is ensuring the various Mozilla organizations work in concert to make trustworthy AI a reality. Mark led the creation of Mozilla.ai (a commercial AI R+D lab) and Mozilla Ventures (an impact venture fund with a strong focus on AI). Before joining Mozilla, Mark spent 15 years leading organizations and projects that promoted the use of the internet and open source as tools for social and economic development.

More about our guests:

Audrey Tang, Cyber Ambassador of Taiwan, served as Taiwan’s 1st digital minister (2016-2024) and the world’s 1st nonbinary cabinet minister. Tang played a crucial role in shaping g0v (gov-zero), one of the most prominent civic tech movements worldwide. In 2014, Tang helped broadcast the demands of Sunflower Movement activists, and worked to resolve conflicts during a three-week occupation of Taiwan’s legislature. Tang became a reverse mentor to the minister in charge of digital participation, before assuming the role in 2016 after the government changed hands. Tang helped develop participatory democracy platforms such as vTaiwan and Join, bringing civic innovation into the public sector through initiatives like the Presidential Hackathon and Ideathon.

Sayash Kapoor is a Laurance S. Rockefeller Graduate Prize Fellow in the University Center for Human Values and a computer science Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy. He is a coauthor of AI Snake Oil, a book that provides a critical analysis of artificial intelligence, separating the hype from the true advances. His research examines the societal impacts of AI, with a focus on reproducibility, transparency, and accountability in AI systems. He was included in TIME Magazine’s inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in AI.

Mérouane Debbah is a researcher, educator and technology entrepreneur. He has founded several public and industrial research centers, start-ups and held executive positions in ICT companies. He is professor at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, and founding director of the Khalifa University 6G Research Center. He has been working at the interface of AI and telecommunication and pioneered in 2021 the development of NOOR, the first Arabic LLM.

Further reading & resources

• Polis — a real-time participation platform
• Recursive Public by vTaiwan
• Noor — the first LLM trained on the Arabic language
• Falcon Foundation
• Buy AI Snake Oil by Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan