Gaslighting Openness

Armin Ronacher, a longtime open-source advocate, argues that major technology companies are manipulating the narrative around AI safety and security to restrict user access and control. The author contends that Apple's delayed AI features in Europe due to the Digital Markets Act and Anthropic's restrictions on its Mythos and Fable models represent efforts to close off access to devices and data under the guise of protection. Ronacher warns that accepting this framing undermines democratized access to technology, particularly in Europe where capital markets and talent pools are already at a disadvantage.

I have been a staunch supporter of Open Source for a long time, including experiments https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2023/11/19/cathedral-and-bazaaar-licensing/ in https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/9/23/fsl-agpl-open-source-businesses/ funding https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/9/19/open-source-tax/ it https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/10/14/mixing-oss-and-money/ . I’m a true believer in the idea that Open Source always wins in the long run, but not automatically and not quickly. Right now it is being stressed by AI slop, shifting contributor dynamics, the falling cost of producing code, and large companies learning to close doors behind them. A lot of that battle today is manipulation of the narrative. Opinion makers on social media and in business circles increasingly frame access as irresponsibility. That is why the EU’s DMA matters, even if many people including myself reflexively hate EU regulation. Apple’s fight over delayed AI features in Europe https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-delayed-in-eu-for-ios-27-and-ipados-27/ is not about Brussels being annoying: it is about whether users can access their own devices and data. The phone is yours, the data is yours, yet Apple decides who may reach it and takes the agency away from you and then tries to make that sound like it is in your interest supposedly it’s for your safety and security . The closer you get to the core of AI, the more this shows up. Anthropic has every financial incentive to restrict what people can do with Mythos and Fable https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5 , and they wrap those restrictions in safety and national security language. Some restrictions may be defensible, but not all of them are. They trained their models on public works, then block Open Source attempts to learn from and distill these systems. Disliking the EU, China, or any other large government should not make us forget that true democratized access to technology including AI is in all our interest. Some temporary product pain, including delayed Apple AI features, will be worth paying if it keeps gates open. We should not let companies own the narrative that preventing access is in our interest, particularly not as Europeans where the odds are already stacked against us by our underdeveloped capital markets, brain drain and internal fighting.