Exploration - From Free Software to Free AI
In the first part of the trilogy Mist, we revealed the explosive development of the digital world in just 80 years, the current impact of AI on society, and how we can respond to this transformation.
More worrying than the fear of humans being replaced by AI is the question: will humans become "slaves" to digital giants in the digital world?
- From PCs, the internet, e-commerce, mobile internet, to now AI, everything is effectively controlled by a few platform giants.
- In the internet age, an account is everyone's identity in the digital world; platforms effectively hold the power of "life and death."
- AI equality may not exist; in fact, it may be widening the gap between rich and poor because AI is an amplifier of capabilities.
Does technological progress actually diminish the value of humanity? The core question lies in what is driving the world's development.
In the short 80-year history of the digital world, especially the 40 years after the birth of the personal computer, many technological innovations were actually driven by engineers' yearning for freedom.
Early Computer Development (1946-1970)
The earliest computers used paper tape. I remember during my graduate studies, when we learned about Turing machines, I created a small animation using PowerPoint to demonstrate how a computer read and manipulated paper tape. Often, engineers thought like computers, reading in various codes, simulating their execution, and operating like a computer. (Of course, AI now has a slightly reversed aspect; computers operate like the human brain.)
In the early days, the software source code that came bundled with the computer was essential for engineers. This was the only way to communicate with the machine, which is perhaps why code is called a programming language.
Engineers adapted to hardware and fixed bugs by sharing source code. In that era, hardware was paramount, and software was secondary. See The History of Free Software
The Conflict Between Commercial Development and Hacker Culture (1970-1989)
As software becomes more complex and its value more apparent, driven by commercial interests, more and more companies are choosing to close their software and no longer share source code. However, during this period, engineers' pursuit of freedom, influenced by hacker culture, meant that a group of engineers continued to promote source code sharing.
The forerunners of free software, born before the 1980s—TeX and the Unix family—are still widely used today.
The first formal definition of free software appeared in Richard Stallman's 1986 article, "What is the Free Software Foundation?", published in GNU'S BULLETIN Volume 1 No.1. This later further developed into open-source software and open-source culture.
That was exactly 40 years ago, the 40th anniversary of the digital age.
The microcomputers, or personal computers, that emerged in the 1980s also began to allow people to freely use computers and enter the digital world.
PC Era 1990 - 1999
This period saw the birth of crucial Open Source software, which remains the cornerstone of the digital world's development to this day.
In 1991, Linux was born. Today, 90% of servers run Linux, and all Android phones use the Linux kernel. Linux was created because Linus Torvalds was dissatisfied with the licensing of Minix and the high cost of Unix systems, leading him to create the open-source and free Linux. What would you like to see most in Minix?
In 1990, the first browser, WorldWideWeb, was created and open-sourced in 1993.
In 1994, Netscape Navigator was released, later evolving into the renowned open-source Firefox browser.
In 1998, KHTML was born, and together with KJS, it supported the later development of WebKit (see (fwd) Greetings from the Safari team at Apple Computer. The widely used Chrome and Safari browsers are actually derived from WebKit.
Not to mention the LAMP stack, which, beyond just Linux, includes Apache, MySQL, and Python, forms the foundation of today's digital world.
Therefore, you'll find that it is precisely because of these free and open-source software developments of the 1990s that the internet and mobile eras came into being.
The 21st century
I think there were three very important technological innovations in the software field at the beginning of the 21st century.
The earliest was BitTorrent (BT) download, which appeared in 2001 BitTorrent - a new P2P app, essentially P2P file sharing. In my view, this was the first time that decentralized technology was widely applied, allowing users to interact freely and directly with other users without relying on the bandwidth of a central server.
- Actually, BT download failed to continue developing due to its infringement on copyright, but its P2P concept had already penetrated deeply into the internet infrastructure.
The second was the competition between iOS and Android, which truly made everyone feel the direct competition between open source and closed source. Android's success further solidified the open source model, and the open-source Android platform allowed more people to freely use mobile phones. While these two technologies are evenly matched in terms of product offerings, I believe they are not on the same level in terms of their impact on human society.
- Closed-source primarily drives the progress and development of individual products and companies, while open-source applies productivity to a wider range of society, undoubtedly having a more significant impact on the progress of human society as a whole.
The third is Bitcoin. Compared to P2P in BitTorrent downloads, which uses decentralization to solve bandwidth issues, Bitcoin allows people to truly experience the "freedom" brought by decentralization, being able to own their own digital currency that is not controlled by others.
- However, I'd like to add here that after so many years, the industry's talk of Web 3.0 and decentralized currencies has essentially been about building platforms. Without the so-called blockchain (i.e., the platform), they have no value. I don't believe Web 3.0 can solve the demand for freedom in the digital world; most of it is still playing financial games.
Open Source in the AI Era
The arrival of the AI era is actually witnessing developments similar to those of the early 21st century.
For example, the competition between closed-source and open-source AI is driving societal progress. As many can feel, the gap between open-source and closed-source AI has narrowed considerably in the past, becoming more of a competition between two business models.
For instance, the contributions of open-source AI models have significantly accelerated the overall AI productivity of society. The short-lived explosive popularity of OpenClaw, for example, may be the first open-source project to attract even non-experts.
Although I mentioned in my article FOSSASIA that OpenClaw is not suitable for widespread use, and its popularity has clearly declined sharply, this explosive popularity reflects people's desire to have their own AI assistant and their yearning for the freedom to use AI. While OpenClaw doesn't actually address this demand.
Some people are pessimistic about open source in the AI era because code is generated by AI, so whether it's open source or not is irrelevant. This still needs further observation, and I reserve my opinion.
All in all
Just as the core driving force behind human development over millennia in the real world has been the pursuit of freedom, so too has the evolution and development of the digital world.
In the short term, on the one hand, various industries will increasingly utilize AI and new technologies to improve productivity; on the other hand, it's crucial to avoid blindly trusting AI. In particular, we must oppose the notion that increased AI usage will require fewer human resources. This line of thinking is extremely harmful to society and, in fact, extremely harmful to companies.
If we treat AI capabilities as fundamental capabilities within an industry, then when a company uses fewer people, it means that the value generated by AI is less, ultimately leading to a decline in the company's competitiveness.
Faced with the AI revolution, we must consider what can be done to increase value and enhance competitiveness within the industry once human productivity is freed from repetitive, tedious, and redundant tasks. If a bank lays off employees because of the advent of ATMs, that bank will ultimately lose value in industry competition.
Returning to the digital world, the current situation is actually quite similar to the feudal system of early human societies, where many resources and control are concentrated in the hands of a few "feudal lords." As the digital world expands further and people become more integrated into it, won't people's yearning for freedom be the driving force behind social progress?
Therefore, will people become "slaves" to digital giants in the digital world? I believe not, because the core of social progress is not technology itself, but humanity's own pursuit.
The next article is the third in the digital autonomy trilogy, "Pastoral," continuing to envision what the future of digital freedom might look like.
Author's Note:
The original article was entirely written by the author, without the use of AI or AI editing. This approach is especially valuable in today's world.
Articles in different languages will be translated using translation tools based on the original text, and each sentence will be verified.