Banning Open-Source AI Models to Protect Our Cybersecurity May Do the Opposite

In an escalating effort to give the federal government power over the AI industry, some members of the Trump administration have reportedly tried to implement a “de facto ban” on foreign-made open-source AI models. This ban would apply to any non-US-made AI model, but the goal seems to be to specifically target Chinese AI labs, which often release their models as open source. The recent release of the Kimi K3 AI model from Chinese developer Moonshot fueled these concerns. Kimi K3 matched and in some cases exceeded the capabilities of American-made AI models such as those made by OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. Its July release sent shockwaves through Wall Street – not unlike other AI model drops, but with one big difference. Kimi K3 was released as an open-weight model, while American AI leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic companies keep their tech closed with very few exceptions. Open-source AI typically refers to open-weight models. Weights are characteristics that tell the model how to behave – giving more weight to useful answers than incorrect ones, for example. Open-source advocates have said that to be truly open-source, AI companies should release or clarify their training data sources. AI companies haven’t been forthcoming; OpenAI and other companies are being sued by publishers and artists for allegedly violating their copyrights in AI training. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) Open-weight models give developers more insight into how top models work. Nearly 80% of developers use open models, a recent Mozilla report found. “Open-weight models are everywhere in the industry already,” said Linda Griffin, vice president of global policy at Mozilla. “So a world without them would hit a lot of people.” Tech companies immediately and strongly rejected the idea of a government ban on open AI models. Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta and several other AI developers and tech venture capital firms signed an open letter (PDF) asking the Trump administration to reconsider. “Our AI leadership will be judged not by one frontier AI model, but by whether the United States builds a strong, open ecosystem that diffuses into every sector,” the July 24 letter reads. Ideally, the money and power that AI companies promise come with AI adoption, would follow. Restrictions on Chinese tech: Good or bad for cybersecurity? This is far from the first time the Trump administration has taken steps to limit Americans’ access to Chinese tech. Remember the years-long battle over potentially banning TikTok? Chinese parent company ByteDance was eventually forced to transfer ownership of its US business to US-based ownership led by Oracle, whose co-founder and executive chairman, Larry Ellison, is a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump. Restrictions on foreign hardware have been rolling out, too. The Federal Communications Commission banned foreign-made routers in March, saying that they posed a security risk. The order massively disrupted the industry behind the devices that people need in order to access the internet. Given the leaps in AI advancement over the past year, it isn’t totally surprising to see these arguments. AI is being used by both cybersecurity attackers and defenders, making it a high priority for AI companies to secure their models against potential misuse. Anthropic and OpenAI have both worked with the US government to slow-roll the release of their newest models, Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6, respectively. That government review is voluntary for now, but it might one day become mandatory, specifically because of the cybersecurity concerns. But if government officials are worried about AI cybersecurity, banning open AI models might have the opposite effect. “Open-weight models allow researchers to examine how these systems work and identify risks and vulnerabilities,” said Aditya Vashistha, professor of computer science at Cornell University. “Restricting access would make it much harder to independently evaluate how safe and secure these technologies really are.” The Trump administration has been adamant that it won’t hinder AI innovation with regulation. But if open-weights models are banned, the people and companies who aren’t part of selective AI cybersecurity programs like Anthropic’s Project Glasswing will be at risk, said Ayham Boucher, executive director of AI strategy and innovation at Cornell. “Regulators can’t have it both ways. You can’t restrict access to frontier models and ban open-source models, leaving enterprises and institutions defenseless,” Boucher said. The AI company Anthropic created a consortium of tech companies that includes Apple, Nvidia and Amazon AWS to address the issue of cybersecurity in the era of next-generation artificial intelligence models.Anthropic Openly ‘diffusing’ the benefits of AI Unsurprisingly, the tech industry has reacted negatively to the idea of restricting access to open-source AI models. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg advocated for open AI technologies, writing in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that it is through openness that the benefits of AI spread throughout our society. “Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened hasn’t led to safe or positive outcomes,” Zuckerberg wrote. (As CEO of the company that operates several of the world’s largest social media platforms, Zuckerberg himself is one of the very few who have something like absolute power over our technological experiences.) But the true appeal and benefit of open-source AI, like all open-source technologies, is that anybody gets to build with AI, not just Big Tech. “If you take them away, developers and consumers pay more, get less choice, and a whole lot of useful stuff just never gets made,” Griffin said. A broad ban “would set a troubling precedent.” Developers know that some guidance is necessary. Over 1,000 staffers at top labs, including chief scientists from OpenAI, Meta and more, signed an open letter asking the US government to support an international effort to build technical and governance tools as they “pace the frontier” of AI research and development. “For the US to maintain its leadership in AI, it cannot rely solely on closed models,” said Vashistha. “If the US moves away from open models while others continue investing in them, it risks ceding not just market share, but also influence over the global AI ecosystem.” Katelyn is a reporter with CNET covering artificial intelligence, including chatbots, image and video generators. Her work explores how new AI technology is infiltrating our lives, shaping the content we consume on social media and affecting the people behind the screens. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in media and journalism. You can reach her at kchedraoui@cnet.com. See full bio