Frank Karlitschek is a long time open source contributor and former board member of the KDE e.V. He founded Nextcloud in 2016 to create a fully open source and decentralized alternative to big centralized cloud companies. Frank was an invited expert at the W3C to help to create the ActivityPub standard. Frank has spoken at MIT, CERN, Harvard and ETH and keynoted LinuxCon, Latinoware, FOSSASIA, Campus Party and many other conferences. Frank is the founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH. He is also a fellow of Open Forum Europe and an advisor to the United Nations regarding Open Source. Frank won the European SFS Free Software Award 2023 and the Acteurs du Libre European Award 2023.
# Topic: The AI revolution: Navigating Challenges and Crafting Ethical Solutions for Open Source Software
Over the past year, we’ve witnessed a surge in AI systems such as ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E, among others. These large language models, exemplified by GPT, have ushered in a wave of groundbreaking features and products poised to reshape our world. However, alongside their promise, these language models present significant challenges that could adversely impact the Open Source and Open Tech community.
For instance, it remains uncertain whether universal access to the same ML models and training data will be attainable in the future. Can students, startups, and open source enthusiasts cultivate innovative products with AI on par with the collaborative ethos of open source communities fostering Open Code and Open Tech? Moreover, how do we ensure that AI systems do not perpetuate discrimination against underrepresented minorities? Additionally, what are the environmental implications, including energy consumption and CO2 emissions, of deploying these massive AI systems?
This talk will delve into the prevailing challenges surrounding AI including the Ethical AI framework, examining its implications for existing SaaS AI solutions versus open source local alternatives.
In its latter half, it will explore the Nextcloud community’s pioneering efforts in developing novel local and open source AI features. Furthermore, the ongoing dialogue to define an Open Source AI standard within the OSI community will be covered.
Register here to watch the talk and other very interesting ones.
The keynote speech will be delivered in English.
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