"Open" alternatives to ChatGPT are on the rise, but how open is AI really?

OpenAI's ChatGPT seems ubiquitous, but open source versions of instruction-tuned text generators are gaining the upper hand. In just 6 months, at least 15 serious alternatives have emerged, all of which have at least one important advantage over ChatGPT: they are a lot more transparent. Insight into training data and algorithms is key for responsible use of generative AI, a team of linguists and language technology researchers at Radboud University claim. The researchers have mapped this rapidly evolving landscape in a paper and a live-updated website. This shows there are many working alternative "open source" text generators, but also that openness comes in degrees and that many models inherit legal restrictions.