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GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke recently attended the EU Open Source Policy Summit held in Brussels and shared his views on the upcoming AI Act. He noted that the AI Act will set the standards for regulating AI around the world and will be important for both developers and the open-source community.

The statement from Dohmke follows a long-line of thought in tech circles as to the importance of open-source. Open-source capabilities are often said to be critical for the advancement of technology and for its usage in the wider world. They give access to many of the most important advancements in tech and help ensure the public has a baseline level of understanding that is necessary for effectively engaging new innovations.

However, tech companies such as GitHub, which are built around open-source capabilities, are also striving to ensure that the wide-reaching implications of the AI Act and other regulations are taken into account by policymakers. To ensure that tech regulations and policies are clear, effective, and not overly restrictive, representatives like Dohmke are advocating for inclusion of tech-experts, open-source developers and engineers, and members of the wider tech-community.

This presence is especially important since many of the upcoming regulations and policies of AI will have a significant impact on the current tech landscape and will set the standards for tech innovation in years to come. With this in mind, Dohmke affirmed that the AI Act needed to “get it right” for the open-source community and for developers.

The implications of Dohmke’s speech at the Open Source Policy Summit serve as an important reminder to the tech-community that, in order to continue delivering substantial progress and meaningful group, representation of tech-interests on a local and global-scale should be taken seriously. The upcoming AI Act is one of the first, large-scale attempts to regulate the development of AI, and its success or failure could shape the future of the tech-world in years to come.