Ion Stoica, Percy Liang to debate open vs. closed AI at Open Source AI Week in SF
stanfordnlp · x · 2026-10-21
Open Source AI Week 2026 (Oct 16–25) has announced "The Debates," a 250-seat event on Oct 19 at GitHub's SF office, hosted by GitHub, Microsoft Azure and Open Intelligence Foundation, sponsored by Google DeepMind, Arcee AI, SemiAnalysis and NEAR Foundation.
Three motions:
- "Frontier-level capabilities in open models will outweigh the risks": Ion Stoica (UC Berkeley/Databricks) vs. Malo Bourgon (MIRI)
- "AI democratization requires affordable access to intelligence, not public weights": Ben Brooks (Black Forest Labs) vs. Cheryl Cheng (M12)
- "Closed models will keep a capability advantage through 2030": Percy Liang (Stanford) vs. David Bellamy (MBZUAI)
Debates will be moderated by AI media and judged by industry figures, with videos posted afterward.
Related event: Open AI Week Debates: Open Source Sweeps All Three Rounds(2 posts)→
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