The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) has expressed approval of a report released by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The report evaluates the risks, benefits, and potential policy approaches to openness in artificial intelligence (AI).
The NTIA's inquiry concentrated on open "foundation" models that are publicly available along with their model "weights," which these systems use to generate outputs. This investigation was mandated by the Biden Administration’s Executive Order on AI.
In a notable development for proponents of AI openness, the NTIA has advised against new legal restrictions on publishing open foundation models unless there is clear evidence that these models pose significant risks greater than those posed by other technologies like the internet or closed AI models.
This recommendation aligns with CDT's stance throughout the proceedings. CDT has voiced its perspective through public events, an academic paper co-authored by leaders of CDT’s AI Governance Lab, a coalition letter to the Commerce Secretary co-organized with Mozilla, and comments submitted directly to the NTIA. These contributions are frequently cited in the report.
Kevin Bankston, CDT’s Senior Advisor on AI Governance, stated: “CDT appreciates that the NTIA correctly concluded that there is not yet enough evidence of novel risks from open foundation models to warrant new restrictions on their distribution. This is especially true when considering the much clearer evidence of benefits from AI openness: to transparency, security, innovation, competition, and the availability of AI to historically marginalized communities. These benefits accrue to everyone in the ecosystem, from those who develop and deploy AI systems to everyday users and consumers."
Bankston further acknowledged: “This outcome wouldn’t be possible without a broad coalition—from civil liberties to civil rights organizations, from progressive groups to more market-oriented groups, along with advocates for openness in both government and industry, a broad range of academic experts from law, policy, and computer science, and the traditional open source software community—who raised their voices to defend the right to publish AI models with open model weights. In doing so, they have helped advance the ability of everyone—not just a handful of large companies offering closed AI models—to benefit from this powerful new technology.”
