Organizations linked to free software such as Creative Commons, Github, Huggingface have made public a document in which they offer suggestions on how to improve the AI Act to protect and foster the development of free software.

The document is at https://huggingface.co/blog/assets/eu_ai_act_oss/supporting_OS_in_the_AIAct.pdf%5D and here is an executive summary*:

Support for Open Source and Open Science in the EU AI Act

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Open source, non-profit and academic research and development play an essential role in the artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem. Continuing to support and foster this open ecosystem will be key to ensuring that technology serves all EU citizens for two main points: ● First, the values of solid research, reproducibility and transparency fostered by open science are fundamental to the development of safe and responsible AI systems. ● Second, open source development can enable competition and innovation by new entrants and smaller players, including in the EU. The AI Act promises to set a global precedent in AI regulation to address its risks while encouraging innovation. By supporting the growing approach of the open ecosystem towards AI, the regulation has an important opportunity to deepen this objective through greater transparency and collaboration between stakeholders. Unfortunately, current proposals threaten to create impracticable barriers and disadvantages for contributors to this open ecosystem. The signatory organizations represent both commercial and non-profit stakeholders in the open source AI ecosystem. Below, we make 5 concrete suggestions to ensure that the AI Act works for open source:

1. Clearly define AI components
2. Clarify that the collaborative development of open source AI components and making them available in public repositories does not subject developers to the requirements of the AI Act, improving and expanding Recitals 12a-c of the Parliament text and Article 2(5e).
3. Support the coordination of the AI Office and inclusive governance with the open source ecosystem, based on the Parliament text.
4. Ensure that the R&D exception is practical and effective, allowing limited trials in real conditions, combining aspects of the Council approach and a modified version of Parliament’s Article 2(5d).
5. Establish proportional requirements for “base models”, recognizing and treating differently different uses and development modalities, including open source approaches, adapting Parliament’s Article 28b. (translated with AI)