DIY AI Related Work

Some new papers…

• deepromChallengesAdoptingLLaMA
• linakerCartographyOpenCollaboration2025
• soweUnderstandingOpenSource2024
• nasiopoulosLlama2Early2023

Broadening definitions of openness in AI/Beyond “open source” in AI

Maps to RQ1.

1. Started with open source.
2. Then came the question, should we really be calling all of these models open source? Liesenfeld et al. distinguished 12 components that make up a foundation model, and concluded that many fall short. liesenfeldOpeningChatGPTTracking2023, liesenfeldRethinkingOpenSource2024
3. Open Science. (whiteModelOpennessFramework2024)
4. Democratization, and governance. (segerDemocratisingAIMultiple2023, osborneWhyCompaniesDemocratise2024)
   1. As papers point out, AI governance is a key aspect of democratization of AI, not just access. We add to this point that we do not see much of this happening.
   2. See widderOpenBusinessBig2023 for why this can become a problem
5. Multidisciplinary perspectives on openness. (parisOpeningScopeOpenness2025)
   1. Approaches to openness should consider not only properties of openness and afforded actions of those properties, but their desired effects. While we don’t study what desired effects model developers intended, we study the actual effects of open AI.

Gap: What are the “stakeholders’”, i.e. users’ of such systems, definitions of openness in AI?

Communities around AI

Maps to RQ3.

1. Hugging Face. Nomadic behavior, models do not have the affordance of collaboration over time. (choksiBriefWondrousLife2025, osborneAICommunityBuilding2024)
   1. Hugging Face studies show that collaboration is intense but ephemeral, and people nomadically jump from one model to another. This does not incentivize long-term development and community formation over one artifact, which sets AI different from traditional software. However, AI does form cross-model innovations, which may form communities that are more sticky (in contrast to nomadic). yamashitaMagnetStickyOSS2014
2. GitHub, MLOSS. (langenkampHowOpenSource2022)
3. Challenges can breed community tangNavigatingUncertaintiesUnderstanding2025, orrAISportCompetitive2024, pawlikCrowdsourcingScientificSoftware2015

Gap: How about “cross-model” communities? Reddit?

Known benefits and drawbacks of open AI

Kind of map to RQ2 but not?

1. Open AI has no undo button, and it can be manipulated for malicious use, like spreading misinformation, scamming, etc. (segerOpenSourcingHighlyCapable2023)
   1. Supported by arditiRefusalLanguageModels2024, zhangControllingLargeLanguage2025
2. Researchers have argued that software producing entities can control, or at least envision how their software will be used. (widderLimitsPossibilitiesEthical2022)
   1. There are lots of papers that point to risks like “malicious use” as categorically bad, but r/LocalLLaMA provides evidence that some see model censorship or safety as a matter of censorship, and models with their safety training removed have tangible utility to some.
3. Benefits outweigh drawbacks in academic literature eirasMidtermRisksOpportunities2024, eirasRisksOpportunitiesOpenSource2024

Gap: We don’t know what non-malicious reasons, or ideological reasons, are invoked to justify model fine-tuning.