Open-Source as Corporate Canary

Something that occurs to me while reading posts like these from Simon Willison is that: it’s worthwhile for corporations to fund his open-source posting/experimentation precisely because he sits outside their walls.

I’ve long wondered why some big corp would sponsor him for doing his stuff in the open, rather than doing it within their walls. For things like this Anthropic Fable release, every corp is clamoring to test it but there are nasty strings attached (mandatory data retention policies, etc.). Simon is able to test it for them indirectly and post about it publicly. So he becomes their barometer for things they are too risk-averse to do.

Interesting. I wonder if there’s more to do in that way, or to be more direct about it. Or maybe he is and I’m just not seeing it?