Cisco Releases Open Source Tool for AI Model Provenance 

Cisco on Thursday unveiled a new open source tool, named Model Provenance Kit, designed to help organizations address potential issues associated with the use of third-party AI models.

Organizations often leverage AI models obtained from model repositories such as HuggingFace, where millions of models are available.

While these models can offer many benefits, organizations often don’t track the changes made to them. In addition, although repositories provide guidance on the importance of model cards and metadata, the maintenance work performed by their developers can vary, affecting downstream users. 

Cisco also pointed out that claims made by model developers — including the model’s source, vulnerabilities, and training biases — are often not verified. 

These aspects can introduce various security, compliance, and liability issues. For instance, enterprises could end up using models that are poisoned or vulnerable to manipulation. 

“If unaccounted…