“Open source generative AI” refers to generative artificial intelligence models and tools whose source code, training methodologies, and sometimes even trained weights are publicly available , allowing anyone to use, modify, and redistribute them. These models can generate text, images, audio, code, and other types of content.
🔍 What is Generative AI?
Generative AI refers to AI systems capable of creating new data similar to their training data — for example:
- Text generation (e.g., chatbots like ChatGPT)
- Image generation (e.g., Stable Diffusion, DALL·E-like models)
- Audio/music generation
- Code generation
- Video and 3D object generation
🧠 Popular Open Source Generative AI Models
📝 Text Generation (LLMs – Large Language Models)
| Model | Description | License |
|---|---|---|
| Llama / Llama2 / Llama3 (Meta) | Powerful open-weight LLMs (non-commercial or permissive license) | Meta’s Llama License |
| Mistral / Mixtral (Mistral AI) | High-performance small & large language models | Apache 2.0 (Mixtral), custom (Mistral) |
| Falcon (TII) | High-quality causal language models | Apache 2.0 |
| RedPajama | Community-driven LLaMA replica | Apache 2.0 |
| OpenChat | Fine-tuned open-source models based on Llama | Varies |
| StableLM (Stability AI) | Family of open-source LLMs | CreativeML Open RAIL-M |
| Phi (Microsoft) | Small but powerful models for reasoning tasks | MIT License |
🖼️ Image Generation
| Model | Description | License |
|---|---|---|
| Stable Diffusion (Stability AI) | One of the most popular image generation models | CreativeML Open RAIL-M |
| Diffusers (HuggingFace) | Library for diffusion models including SD versions | Apache 2.0 |
| LAION Dataset | Massive dataset used to train many open-source image models | Public domain (CC0) |
| Kandinsky (Russian Railways AI Lab) | Russian-made diffusion model | Open license |
💻 Code Generation
| Model | Description | License |
|---|---|---|
| StarCoder / StarCoder2 (BigCode) | Code generation models trained on 150+ programming languages | Open RAIL-M |
| CodeGen (Salesforce) | Multilingual code generation | Apache 2.0 |
| Santacoder / Polycoder | Smaller code generation models | MIT |
🎵 Audio/Music Generation
| Model | Description | License |
|---|---|---|
| Bark (Suno AI) | Text-to-speech and audio generation (supports music too) | MIT |
| MusicGen (Meta) | Music generation from text or melody | MIT |
| AudioLDM / AudioLDM2 | Text-to-audio generation using diffusion | Apache 2.0 |
🛠 Tools & Frameworks for Open Source Generative AI
| Tool | Use Case | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hugging Face Transformers | Run/train LLMs, diffusion models, etc. | Python-based |
| Diffusers (by Hugging Face) | For running diffusion models | PyTorch, JAX support |
| LangChain | Chain prompts, connect models with external tools | Integrates with many open models |
| Llama.cpp | Run LLMs in C/C++ format (GPU-free, CPU-friendly) | Great for local deployment |
| Ollama | Easy tool to run and manage LLMs locally | Supports macOS/Linux |
| AutoGPT / BabyAGI / AgentGPT | Auto agents using LLMs | Experimental |
| Gradio / Streamlit | Build web interfaces for your models | Fast prototyping |
🧬 Why Use Open Source Generative AI?
✅ Transparency : You can inspect the code and model architecture
✅ Customizability : Retrain or fine-tune on your own data
✅ Privacy : Deploy locally without sending data to third parties
✅ Cost-effective : No API costs or vendor lock-in
✅ Community Support : Actively developed by global communities
🚨 Considerations
⚠️ Licenses : Some “open” models have restrictive licenses (e.g., Llama is not fully open for commercial usage). Always check the terms.
⚠️ Performance : Open models may underperform compared to proprietary ones like GPT-4 or Midjourney.
⚠️ Compliance : Ensure you’re meeting legal and ethical standards when deploying these models.
🧪 Example: Running an Open Source LLM Locally
Using ollama and llama3:
# Install Ollama
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh
# Pull a model
ollama pull llama3
# Run it
ollama run llama3
Output:
>>> Hello!
Hi! How can I assist you today?
✅ Learn More
- Hugging Face Models Hub : https://huggingface.co/models
- Ollama : https://ollama.ai
- Llama.cpp GitHub : https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp
- The BigCode Project : https://bigcode-project.github.io
- Stable Diffusion (HuggingFace) : https://github.com/huggingface/diffusers
