Open Source AI's Nuclear Reactor Moment: Government Arrives Before Safety Shell is Built

Last month at the APEC summit in Chengdu, the US and other countries rarely agreed on something: supporting open-source AI, but only if it comes with "strong safety" clauses. It reminds me exactly of the early days of the nuclear energy industry—lab reactor designs were made public, governments were excited about clean energy prospects but worried about some back-alley workshop building a dirty bomb. Today, open-source AI faces the same dilemma: model weights are released, but who guarantees they won't be used to create bioweapons? Who pays for "strong safety"?