Activist’ tech company Mozilla to push for public AI infrastructure

Author Sharlene Gandhi

Technology company Mozilla is advocating for ‘Public AI’, an approach to developing artificial intelligence products and open-source models that are publicly owned, used and shared. 

Published in late September, the paper argues that despite ‘hundreds of billions of dollars’ being pumped into privately owned AI companies and models, private companies are unlikely to be fully aligned with public good.

Private companies are also more likely to push policymakers to make private investments in AI more accessible. 

“This status quo means some critical projects – such as using AI to detect illegal mining operations, facilitate deliberative democracy, and match cancer patients to clinical trials – remain under-resourced relative to their potential societal value,” they write. 

The company suggests developing non-commercial incentives for public AI use, including open-source code for AI models, locally-owned cloud and storage providers, and public contribution of data to train models. 

Mozilla’s Technology Fund specifically looks to support open-source developers, with the 2024 cohort focusing on the intersection of AI and the environment.

In July, Udbhav Tiwari, Mozilla’s director of global product policy, was a key witness at a public hearing by the Senate Committee on Commerce, focused on protecting consumer privacy through legislation in the age of AI. 

Identifying as an ‘activist organization’, Mozilla was founded in 1998 and gave away its original program code to the public under an open-source license. 

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  • Sharlene Gandhi is the Future of Good editorial fellow on digital transformation.

    Sharlene has been reporting on responsible business, environmental sustainability and technology in the UK and Canada since 2018. She has worked with various organizations during this time, including the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University, AIGA Eye on Design, Social Enterprise UK and Nature is a Human Right. Sharlene moved to Toronto in early 2023 to join the Future of Good team, where she has been reporting at the intersections of technology, data and social purpose work. Her reporting has spanned several subject areas, including AI policy, cybersecurity, ethical data collection, and technology partnerships between the private, public and third sectors.

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