Of Humans and Agents: A Mostly Optimistic Inquiry into the Future of Open Source
See description below
The rise of AI coding assistants and autonomous software agents is transforming how open source projects are developed and maintained. As AI takes on an increasing share of code generation, testing, documentation, and issue triage, important questions emerge: What remains for human collaboration? Do communities still matter?
Open source has always been more than a code production model. It is a social movement built on collaboration, shared learning, trust, and stewardship. The keynote explores how open source communities may evolve in the age of AI-powered software development without losing the values that enabled them to thrive in the first place.
Inessa Pawson is an open source maintainer, educator, and community builder. She contributes across the Python ecosystem, most notably to NumPy, PyOpenSci, the Scientific Python project, and helps organize the SciPy conference and the Maintainer Summit at PyCon US. In her role as Director of the Open Source Program Office at OpenTeams, Inessa leads initiatives that support the human infrastructure of open source, broaden pathways to participation, and lay the foundations for an open, distributed AI economy. As AI transforms how software is produced, her work in open source increasingly focuses on how we build technological systems that preserve autonomy, respect privacy, and enable individuals and organizations to retain meaningful ownership and control of their data, knowledge, and creative work. Inessa is perpetually fascinated by collaborative intelligence, incentive design, and jazz.