Do such open-source projects mean AI will follow a path beyond the control of giant corporations? To answer this question, it is useful to remember the history of so-called free and open-source (FOSS) programming. Free software advocates such as Richard Stallman called for the non-commodification of software in the 1980s, but were largely defeated by the business-friendly open-source movement, championed not only by Linus Torvald, inventor of Linux, but also by the likes of Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media (Liu 2018; Halliday 2018). As 2020 approaches, ‘open source’ is a buzzword for the business press and major IT corporations have shifted from seeing the open-source community as dangerously subversive to viewing it as a source of robust no-cost programming, a potential recruitment ground, and a strategic site for attracting users to their platforms (Weber 2004; Söderberg 2008; Tozzi 2017). Indeed, some open-source projects are dominated by contributions from employees of companies who use those projects. In the case of Linux, 2017 saw ‘well over 85 percent of all kernel development … done by developers who are being paid for their work’ (Corbet and Kroah-Hartman 2018: 15).
The example of Google’s Android operating system illuminates open-source’s shift. Android was released in 2008 by Google on an ‘open’ basis to challenge Apple’s domination of the smartphone market. While Apple’s iOS remains exclusive to its iPhone, Android, in the hands of Samsung, has since 2017 become the globally dominant smartphone operating system. But what has Google gained from this give-away? Initially, it was a defence to avoid Google’s search engine being cut out of an Apple-dominated mobile phone world. Subsequently, as Android itself rose to ascendancy, Google gained a widely-used platform. Google has now instituted ‘closed source creep’ in which ‘an open source base [is] paired with key proprietary apps and services’ (Amadeo 2018). Google has rendered more and more of the apps customers expect to find on an Android phone inaccessible not just to other operating services, but even to developers making versions of Android that Google does not control, such as the free Android clone Replicant. Although ostensibly open-source, in practice Android largely operates as an annex of Google’s larger data-harvesting operations, which in turn sustain its massive advertising revenues and training of its ML systems. In 2018, European Union antitrust regulators fined Google a record \$5.1 billion for abusing its power in mobile phone markets, declaring that ‘Google has used Android as a vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine’ (Satariano and Nicas 2018).
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inhuman power