Open weights and open methods
Publish weights, code, data, and methods that other people can actually run. A right that exists only inside a licensed API is not a right.
Nonprofit · Public intelligence
Heiwig
Open-source AI as a civil liberty.
The right to build, run, and share intelligence — through open research, STEM education, and public tools.
Mission
Why Heiwig exists
Heiwig defends open-source AI as a civil liberty: the right of ordinary people to build, run, study, and share intelligent systems without a government or platform permission slip.
Speech, press, assembly, and learning already assume people may use tools to think in public. General-purpose models are becoming that kind of tool. Closing the weights or gating compute behind political approval is not safety. It is a transfer of power.
- Capable AI is becoming a tool of thought, work, and speech
- If only the state and a few firms may train, run, and modify it, the public is reduced to tenants
- Open weights, open methods, and the skill to use them are how a free people keep that power
- Safety is real; monopoly is not the same thing as safety
Read the ethics standard — capability with duties, not a slogan.
Lines of effort
How we work
Three equal lines of effort. Discovery is the method. Liberty is the purpose.
Education that produces operators
Hands-on pathways for students, teachers, working adults, and veterans. The point is competence: run local models, measure results, write the method down.
Public tools and local compute
Build notebooks, agents, and cheap enough stacks so capable open-source AI can live on machines people control — with dual-use limits stated plainly.
Standard
What “good” looks like
Usable rights
open weights, published methods, and the skill to run them on machines you control
Operators, not spectators
curricula and cohorts that teach people to build and measure, not to wait for a licensed chat box
Public infrastructure
notebooks, agents, and tools that keep capable open-source AI in public hands
Restraint without monopoly
refuse reckless dual-use work without accepting a state or platform monopoly on capability
Kentucky and the Fort Knox corridor are the first geography. Remote collaboration follows.
In progress
Current work
Open replication support
Small awards and published methods for studies worth repeating — so open claims can be checked in public, not licensed behind a lab wall.
Outputs will be posted here.
Operator intensives
Weekend and after-hours cohorts for students and veterans. Run local models, measure results, write the method down.
Outputs will be posted here.
Agent lab notebook
Public-interest tooling for literature, experiment tracking, and open notes. Infrastructure for people who refuse to rent their tools.
Outputs will be posted here.
Operator infrastructure — the stack that makes this work runnable, not ceremonial.
Association model
What we provide
Like a professional association for an industry, Heiwig does not deliver the underlying work. It serves the organizations and people who do — with representation, standards, teaching, and a network.
Advocacy
A voice on rules that govern open weights, local runtimes, and public methods.
Intelligence
Briefings so operators are not the last to hear the law changed.
Education
Teaching that produces people who can run the stack, not rent it.
Standards
A public ethic: capability with duties. Safety is not a monopoly.
Full service catalog — advocacy through research, and who it is for.
Get involved
Support the work
Heiwig is independent. Gifts, in-kind compute, curriculum review, and institutional partnerships all help keep capable AI in public hands.
What gifts fund
- Public methods, open notes, and reproducible outputs
- Teaching that produces operators — kits, cohorts, local stacks
- Tools that keep capable open-source AI in public hands
A formal 501(c)(3) designation and EIN will be posted here when available. We do not invent tax status.
About
Heiwig is a mission-driven nonprofit defending open-source AI as a civil liberty. It is not a personality site and not a political campaign. Civic liberty is not a license for illegal work. We will publish governance, conflict-of-interest, and an annual report as the organization formalizes.
The operating standard is on the Ethics page.