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OpenAI rival Databricks says Sam Altman's open-source stance is 'hogwash'

Last year valued at US$43 billion, Databricks is launching an open-source AI model called DBRX to take on OpenAI, Meta and Google.

Daniel Van Boom
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Databricks is one of the biggest AI startups in the world, valued at US$43 billion. Shutterstock/Rafapress.

Open-source AI is important, but the most powerful models should stay closed for safety's sake. That’s the position taken by Sam Altman, CEO of world’s biggest AI startup OpenAI.

One of its largest challengers is calling foul. On Wednesday Databricks, valued at USD43 billion, unveiled an open-source AI model called DBRX. Naveen Rao, the company’s VP of generative AI, calls Altman’s rhetoric “hogwash”.

“If you’re really serious about safety, you need to decentralise it,” Rao said in an interview. “The way we create safety in the world is not by [giving control to] one set of people who are somehow more altruistic than everybody else. That’s a bunch of bullsh*t.”

Open-source AI models are those made available to developers, typically by putting the code on GitHub where it can be downloaded for free. By contrast, models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google's Gemini can only be accessed through interfaces like ChatGPT. Their code, and information on how and what its trained on, are trade secrets.