The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility. Open source technology has been a driving factor in many of the most innovative developments of the digital age, so it should come as no surprise that it has made its way into artificial intelligence as well. But with trust in AI's impact on the world still uncertain, the idea that open source tools, libraries, and communities are creating AI projects in the usual wild west fashion is creating yet more unease among some observers. Open source supporters, of course, reject these fears, arguing that there is just as little oversight into the corporate-dominated activities of closed platforms. In fact, open source can be more readily tracked and monitored because it is, well, open for all to see. And this leaves us with the same question that has bedeviled technology advances through the ages: Is it better to let these powerful tools grow and evolve as they will, or should we try to control them?

The recent announcement about Neuralink, Elon Musk's latest startup, added to the buzz already in the air about where tech is taking us in the not-so-distant future. Judging by its ambitious plans, which involve pairing computers wirelessly with the human brain, Neuralink demonstrates that the future is now. And a big part of that future is open source artificial intelligence (AI). Rapid advancements have opened up a whole new world of possibilities that startups can take advantage of right now. Traditionally, tech innovations were held close to the vest and developed in secret; no one wanted to give a leg up to the competition.

Algorithms are everywhere in our world, and so is bias. From social media news feeds to streaming service recommendations to online shopping, computer algorithms--specifically, machine learning algorithms--have permeated our day-to-day world. As for bias, we need only examine the 2016 American election to understand how deeply--both implicitly and explicitly--it permeates our society as well. What's often overlooked, however, is the intersection between these two: bias in computer algorithms themselves. Contrary to what many of us might think, technology is not objective. AI algorithms and their decision-making processes are directly shaped by those who build them--what code they write, what data they use to "train" the machine learning models, and how they stress-test the models after they're finished.

Open source technologies are reshaping global enterprises: Incorporating open source technologies is a major contributor to digital transformation of enterprises. It is rapidly becoming the central driver of digital disruption among successful enterprises. Global companies have quickly adopted open-source frameworks to develop their apps and mobile-friendly websites. Open-source technologies have created immense opportunities for business innovation, ranging from operating systems to programming languages. In addition to transforming individual enterprises, open-source development helps reshape the entire industry.