AI has been part of my work and life for a while now, and every day, I see both its potential and its risks. One thing that keeps bothering me is how easy it is for AI to influence people without them even realizing it.
Think about it—how often do you ask yourself, Why am I seeing this ad? Why did this platform recommend this content? The truth is, most of us don’t question it. And that’s where the problem lies. AI can be manipulative if people don’t know it’s being used on them.
For example, I’ve read about algorithms driving misinformation just to increase engagement. Or recruitment tools that quietly filter out candidates because of biased training data. And then there are financial systems making decisions about loans or credit without explaining why. These aren’t hypothetical scenarios—they’re happening right now.
What makes this worse is the black box problem. Most of the time, we have no idea how AI is reaching its conclusions or decisions. What data is it using? Is there bias? What’s the logic? If we wanted to know, could we even find out?
This is why I feel so strongly about open-source AI. When AI is open, it’s transparent. Anyone can see how it works, question it, and even improve it. It’s no longer controlled by a handful of organizations. Instead, it becomes something we can all trust, because it’s accountable to everyone.
Transparency isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential. If we can understand how AI works, we can use it with confidence—not fear. AI is critical, and omnipresent in our life each passing day, so-much-so that it can’t be left unchecked on how it influences us, and we must know how it is serving us. It is a critical infrastructure, like operating system, web server, government policies, etc.
I know there are counterarguments. Open-source can mean risks of misuse too. But in my experience, when more people collaborate and scrutinize something, the end result is almost always better.
So here’s what I’d like to know: Do you think AI should be open source? Or are the risks too big to ignore? Let’s discuss—because this is a conversation we all need to have.