Python Libraries and the Shape of Collective Attention: Cybersecurity and the Rise of AI

The Python programming language is widely used across a range of fields and lines of business. How does interest in Python libraries change over time? Demand for goods like Python is difficult to measure, in part because Python is freely available as free/libre open source software (FLOSS). FLOSS is crucial to modern digital infrastructure such as the web and cloud, and numerous scientific endeavors including modeling and data mining. One part of sustaining digital infrastructure is better understanding how it is being used. In support of this, we consider two types of external events that may serve as demand triggers: internal events, in the form of announcements of security vulnerabilities, and external events, in the form of rising interest in machine learning and large language models in particular.