VOILA! Season 4 episode 3 : AI, Open Source & Security

Seminar page: https://voila-seminars.tilda.ws/tpost/s4e3-ai-open-source

Date and time: 29 January 2026, 4:00-5:00 PM CET

Speaker: Dr. Sarah Myers West

Affiliation:  AI Now Institute

Title: Open (For Business): Big Tech, Concentrated Power, and the Political Economy of Open AI

Topic: AI, Open Source & Security

Abstract: In light of nearly all major AI labs releasing their own open-weight models over the last couple of years, it is perhaps the perfect time to talk about AI and Open Source. This talk will focus on the notion of "open" AI: what exactly is "open" AI, and does it truly exist? We will examine the discourse around 'open source’ and 'open science' in the context of AI industry, and how (mis)understanding of these concepts, when applied to AI, shapes businesses', the public's, and policymakers' knowledge of AI capabilities and limitations.

The development of 'open' AI benefits from the efforts of a diverse community of creators, both for-profit and non-profit: from major AI labs, to research institutes and universities, and finally OS contributors. We will discuss the resources and components an AI creator needs to build AI from scratch and demonstrate the disparity in access to such resources across different types of AI creators. Taken together, the scale of resources required to build and deploy AI and intensifying competition beg the question: why have all major for-profit AI creators (with the exception of Anthropic, for now) embraced 'open' strategy? We will provide an overview of the main goals of this strategy, likely future moves toward these goals and actions already taken to achieve them. This will enable us to better understand the impact of 'going open' on the AI industry ecosystem and provide relevant context to analyze existing regulatory efforts.

Speaker's BIO: Dr. West has spent the last fifteen years interrogating the role of technology companies and their emergence as powerful political actors on the front lines of international governance. Her work focuses on addressing the market incentives and infrastructures that shape tech’s role in society at large and ensuring the needs and interests of the public are centered in the debate around AI.

Sarah’s award-winning research is featured in leading academic journals and prominent media platforms including the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Financial Times, Nature and the Wall Street Journal. She regularly advises members of Congress, the European Commission, UK Government, the City of New York and other US and international regulatory agencies, and has testified before Congress on issues including artificial intelligence, competition and data privacy.

She formerly served as a Senior Advisor on AI at the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina Khan. She holds Doctoral and Masters Degrees from the University of Southern California, where she was the Wallis Annenberg Graduate Research Fellow.