Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming foundational infrastructure for science, education, and society. Yet unlike the open software movement that helped power decades of technological progress, today’s most advanced AI systems are increasingly developed behind closed doors.
In this op-ed, Siegel Family Endowment Chairman David Siegel reflects on his years debating Richard Stallman, the founder of the free software movement, and how those conversations shaped his thinking about openness, innovation, and the public good. Drawing lessons from the history of open source, he argues that maintaining a robust ecosystem for free and open source AI is essential to ensuring that future advances in knowledge remain transparent, accessible, and open to continued discovery.
