Good point. I currently choose to give money to Anthrophic rather than OpenAI because they align a tiny bit more with my values and the product is good. Perhaps releasing an open source model every year could be a differentiator from competitors, where enterprise and individuals choses the lab not because is the best model out there but because gives autonomy in case something happens to the organization providing the models.

For now. Progress in hardware/model efficiency is one of the threats the big AI labs face, because if LLMs become commoditized they can’t make back the billions they spent.

Because they are supported by the Chinese government for the purpose of undermining US capital investments.

Coups like that can happen due to organizations having a small number of board members that can decide to do as they like.

Proper mass-membership organizations are possible though. Same rules as a public corporation, but one vote per members, and the yearly meeting decides the board members and approves important decisions or introduce motions that steer the organization.

So the right way to do this would be to create something like the "Public LLM development club", some criteria on membership (after all entryism is a thing), some membership fee sufficient that there is money for a reasonable amount of work to be done and then one has to hope that people join.

We just need to make it on blockchain so it is immutable. <ducks>

Unpopular opinion: a government funded and run lab, available to the public. The EU could make it happen.

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