OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: Company Considering ‘Different Open-Source Strategy’

OpenAI is reportedly reconsidering its recent shift to a closed-source development approach.

The artificial intelligence (AI) developer had adopted that approach after starting as an open-source company, but is now rethinking it after DeepSeek’s release of a lower cost open-source AI model, Seeking Alpha reported Saturday (Feb. 1), citing OpenAI executives’ comments during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” event held Friday (Jan. 31).

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during the event that OpenAI needs to “figure out a different open-source strategy,” according to the report.

He added that not everyone at OpenAI shares that view and that figuring out the strategy is “not our current highest priority,” per the report.

OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil said during the same event that the company was considering open sourcing older AI models, according to the report.

Open-source models are AI systems in which the source code is shared openly, letting users voluntarily improve its function and design, and creating a permanent and accessible record of its design, PYMNTS reported in January 2024.

While academics and researchers prefer open source, businesses prefer a closed source as it protects their trade secrets.

Elon Musk, who helped OpenAI co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman create a nonprofit in 2015, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in March, saying that the company deviated from its mission to develop AI that benefits humanity.

“To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity,’” the lawsuit said. “In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc., has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”

The recent launch of DeepSeek’s open-source model could shake up enterprise AI, PYMNTS reported Monday (Jan. 27).

Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun said in a post on LinkedIn that the impact of DeepSeek showed that “Open source models are surpassing proprietary ones.”

“DeepSeek has profited from open research and open source. … They came up with new ideas and built them on top of other people’s work,” LeCun wrote. “Because their work is published and open source, everyone can profit from it. That is the power of open research and open source.”

Meta’s strategy was to distribute open-source AI models.