Emma Irwin

I learn by doing, and this was one of those times In recent CHAOSS AI Alignment Working Group and in Open Future meetups, we've been talking about openness, and what it means for AI to be aligned with human intentions, specifically as it relates to honoring the work

March 12, 2026 Update: You can find these playbooks listed as 'services' on Open Source Wishlist https://oss-wishlist.com/catalog One of the motivations behind Open Source Wishlist was promote the knowledge that: We know how to fix MOST sustainability issues in open source. There's not

....Or how do we stop the impending 'finger pointing shit show' This is truly a 'note' of Emma's notes', maybe I'll rephrase this later (by the way I use dashes in my writing, not em-dashes, but dashes, its me not AI)

The language of openness is everywhere in AI right now. As someone who has spent a long time in open source, open education, open government, and open data, it is increasingly noticeable that the words, and the technology output, are in service of profit and power - losing the origins

...and why I am moving Open Source Wishlist under this focus. Open Source Wishlist is something I wish existed when I led Microsoft's FOSS Fund. It has been a creative opportunity to demonstrate to the ecosystem how we can solve multiple sustainability problems at once through standardization, visibility,

The open source world is changing quickly. The maintainers, OSPOs, advocates, community builders - the people who have poured time and energy into open source for years are now watching AI reshape the landscape. Its easy to feel discouraged, but a lot of people in our community are already adapting,

I'm on my way home now from CHAOSScon and FOSDEM, where I ran two complimentary sessions called 'AI Alignment for Open Source' . AI alignment is the effort to design Artificial Intelligence systems so their goals, behaviors, and decisions are consistent with human values and intentions, making

I'll be at CHAOSScon (January 29), the Open Source Policy Summit (January 30 although still on the waitlist), and FOSDEM (February 1-2). If you're around, I'd love to connect over coffee ~ learn from and share with you! Digital Sovereignty in Canada There's

The question of 'how to moderate AI contributions' is a hot topic: My OSS project is over two years old and leverages AI if the user chooses to use it. However, this also seems to attract vibe coders who submit pull requests that absolutely do not follow coding

I started this post intending to 'look back' (a year in review), but found my spirit lowering as I described loss of power and fear - what has felt like an extraction of open culture, value and effort in service of the already very powerful; the role of