 Now, I am very happy to announce Thomas Domke, the CEO of GitHub, who is going to talk about open source and AI. Hello. The speech after lunch break is always the hardest. Everybody has to wake up again and motivate themselves. Thank you so much for having me here today, and thank you to those watching online. I'm Thomas, and I'm a developer. And I've been a developer for so long. I normally see a few phrases in the audience that I know, and I've been to a lot of developer conferences, but not to discussions about public policy. So I must admit I probably don't know most of you, but that's also why I'm so excited to be here today. This is my first time giving remarks on public policy ever. I'm here in Brussels because the AI, thank you, I'm here in Brussels because the AI Act will define how the world regulates AI. And we need to get it right for developers and for the open source community because those are the ones that produce the software that we all depend on. Now if I couldn't tell yet from my accent, yes, I'm German. I grew up in a small apartment in Berlin in a suburb called Matzahn on the east side of the wall before it fell. And my life has transported me around the world, allowed me to hold positions like the one I hold today in no small part because I always had one passion to build with code. Now as CEO of GitHub, it is my responsibility to help a new generation of developers in every way I can to build the next great thing of tomorrow. And over the course of my life as a developer, I have witnessed so many changes to the nature of software development and today I want to focus on two of them, open source and AI. I grew up with open source and looking back to the late nineties and the early 2000s, the community was met with a lot of skepticism. People were betting against open source. Companies were forbidding their developers from using open source. 30 years later, the doubters have been proven resoundingly wrong. The collaboration model that open source provides is just better. Open source powers the digital world we live in. Open source powers governments and corporations alike. And open source is at the heart of European values. It is built with deliberation, open contributions, diverse perspectives that know no borders. And the ultimate belief that everything can be better with collaboration. And it's because of this that open source is powering a spring of innovation across the world and here in Europe. And as the home of open source as GitHub, we have long believed this is our responsibility to help protect and empower developers' rights to innovation and equal opportunity. We have been fighting for European developers when it comes to public policy from the copyright directive to the DSA and today as the EU considers CE marks for software. Open source changed the software, the nature of software development and fueled the world's progress. And now in 2023, we're witnessing a second wave of innovation that is revolutionizing how software gets made. The rise of artificial intelligence. We are at the beginning of the age of AI. It is the defining technology of our times and it's already proliferating in all parts of work and life. You know, it's sorting the photos on your phone by the faces of your loved ones. It's picking your weekly playlist and the next short or video on YouTube. AI is driving our cars and AI-powered innovations are sweeping across every industry and every country and developers are behind all of this and they're collaborating on the latest AI innovations in the open and on GitHub. And now even developers themselves are increasingly using AI to build software with tools like a co-pilot that allows them to build software in half the time. To me, that is a really special moment. We're bringing together the convergence of AI and open source. And you know, open source has been at the core of AI development for years. Open source frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow power nearly all of AI and open source tools have helped improve transparency and remove bias for years. And now AI models are built and shared on open source. The OSS community has been and will remain critical to the advancement of AI. Together, OSS developers will use AI to help make our lives better. I have no doubt that OSS developers will help AI innovations that empower those with disabilities. They will help solve climate change and they will eventually also save lives. And as a European, as somebody who was born on this continent, I love seeing how open source innovations are beginning to break the narrative that only the US and China can lead on tech innovations. And I'll be honest, as a European living in the United States, this is a pervasive and often true narrative. But we can change this and it's already beginning to thanks to open source developers. Look at stable diffusion and open source ML model as an example. You've likely seen exhibits of stable diffusion on the internet. Stable diffusion is an incredibly complex deep learning text to image model that you can use to generate beautiful, lifelike corgis. And this corgi isn't real, but if you could fool me if you just show me quickly this picture. Stable diffusions and other models like Dali or mid-journey are one of the most profound AI breakthroughs to date. In August of last year, the model was released by researchers at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, supported by open source collaborative, supported by German non-profits and two companies, and they all work together and open source the model on GitHub. And it's a brilliant example of how open source can help democratize AI. Originally, the model was trained on GPUs at the cost of over 500,000 euros. But then open source developers got to work and their collaboration delivered huge efficiencies. OSS built upon the model and made it better. Originally, you could only operate that model with a high-powered device with a specific GPU. Today you can run it on your smartphone and yes, you can also of course spin it up on GitHub. So now you can not only generate a corgi, you can even generate a corgi with a rainbow. Wherever you go if you want to. And all that started in Europe. Beyond those flashy things like stable diffusion, the open source community is building AI innovations that are testing for biases, keeping us secure, improving transparency and so much more. And the conversions of AI and open source are delivering incredible innovations. Beyond this open source injects enormous value into the economy, contributions that are especially important in moments like today. According to an open forum study in 2021 delivered by some of you in this room, open source is contributing up to 95 billion euros to the EU's GDP. 95 billion every single year. That is as much value injected into European economy as both an air and water transport combined. And that was commissioned even before the current wave of AI models started. According to estimates, AI is going to contribute over 15 trillion to the global economy by 2030. So it's almost unimaginable, it's almost unimaginable how much economic value European OSS developers could bring by leading this wave of AI washing over the world. GitHub is the host of much such innovation and we are actually working on our own studies to measure the economic impact of generative AI in the coming year. Which is why, as I said earlier, the AI Act is so crucial. This policy could well set the precedent for how the world regulates AI. It is foundationally important, it is important for European technological leadership and for the future of the European economy itself. It must be fair and balanced to the open source community. As was stated when it was first proposed, this act can bring the benefits of AI according to the European values and fundamental rights. These values are central to open source innovation that will deliver an AI. There is so much at stake and so much to gain. So policy makers should help us to get there. The AI Act can foster democratized innovation and solidify European leadership in open value-based artificial intelligence. And so this is why I believe that the open source developers should be exempt from the AI Act. Because ultimately this comes... Yes, thank you. Because ultimately now this comes down to people. The open source community is not a community of entities. It's the community of people. And the compliance burden should fall on entities. It should fall on companies that are shipping products. OSS developers are often just volunteers. Many of them are working two jobs. There are hobbyists and scientists, academics and doctors, professors and university students all alike. And they don't usually stand to profit from their contributions. They certainly don't have big budgets or their own compliance department. The open source community acts as grassroots of technology. Every day translating their ideas into the shared possibility for the rest of this world. And the greatest innovation will always come from the roots but only if we give them the daylight to grow. Open source is forming the foundation of AI in Europe. The US and China don't have to win at all. Let's break that narrative apart. Let's give the open source community the daylight and the clarity to grow their ideas and build them for the rest of this world. And by doing so, let's give Europe the chance to be a leader in this new age of AI. Thank you so much for having me here today and thank you to those watching online. And for those here in the audience, I look forward to seeing you all become familiar faces in the years ahead. Thank you.