If we look back over the last 2-3 decades, we can see stories and movies that have very strong views of what AI would become. Yes, there were a number of stories that showed AI as a hyperintelligent, sentient being that goes rogue and fights against humanity, and thankfully we haven’t seen that happen just yet. However, there was another view of AI, perhaps a little naive but certainly hopeful and optimistic. In these stories, AI was the faithful helper that was ready to answer any question, interpret vague voice commands perfectly without fail (except for comedic relief), and could always think 2-3 steps ahead in order to help the heroes succeed.
The reality of where AI has ended up is honestly a little complicated. First, the good news is we aren’t fighting robots or omniscient powers that can control every computer and appliance. We might need to revisit that risk in a decade, but for now we as a species seem to be okay. Second, some of the AI predictions of the faithful helper have actually come true. We ask our various AI-driven apps questions about navigation, analysis, information retrieval, and can even ask our AI to create full workups of nearly any topic, and explain it to us like we are a child, a university student, or a scientist. This is nothing short of miraculous in many ways, and for certain daily activities it’s actually better than what the optimistic dreamers of yester-year could have hoped for. We can talk to our AI’s and ask them to manage our schedules, control our house functions and smart appliances, and are even encroaching that major threshold of automated driving.
All of this is truly incredible, but it overlooks one key issue in the system: our data, and our privacy by extension, have become products for companies we do not want to share it with. Our attention is manipulated by the companies that use this data to find our weak spots. And bad actors can easily purchase our data to outright steal from us. The AI stories of the last few decades addressed the risk of our losing privacy as a result of digital surveillance by an evil government or bad actors. However, what they couldn’t imagine is that our loss of data and privacy would ring true, but would be just a matter of fact, mundane part of life.
The Loss of Privacy In The Age of AI
And here’s the real problem: We love the amazing things that AI can do for us. It takes almost no time at all for the average person to go from being a skeptic of the newest AI-driven tool, but then becoming hopelessly dependent on it within weeks or even days. In many cases, we don’t even realize that what we are using is driven by AI, and what we are giving up for the service is more of our privacy that we can imagine.
The challenge in changing this paradigm is, like many things, money. An entire industry has been built up around selling our data and privacy because AI can do so much with it. Who does what with our data is at the core of whether this is a good thing or bad thing. Does this mean that we will be forever locked in a zero sum game where we benefit from AI, but only at the cost of our privacy? Well, not necessarily, and you’ll never guess what technology makes it possible.
Web3 to The Rescue
In order to protect your privacy, you need to own your data. In order to make use of strong AI, it must use your data. But in the right hands, with the right technology, you can actually do both, and companies are starting to realize this.
The decentralization and tokenization of Web3 allow platforms to wrap up any digital item, whether it’s an NFT, a piece of information, or a crypto coin, and protect its ownership. This can also be done, it turns out, with a chunk of your private data. Web3 companies are emerging who are focused on the ethics of data privacy while at the same time presenting ways it can be used solely for those who own it. A key example is Vyvo, is a Web3 company that has developed a broad spectrum AI assistant called Life CoPilot, which is part of their larger ecosystem VAI OS. The platform uses wearables and the ability to access a user’s apps related to scheduling, communication, health, and more, in order to provide a wealth of knowledge, advice, and alerts based on what the user wants. Need to get alerts when your heart rate is abnormal? Need to perform multi-sensor analysis that could help predict more serious health issues? Need to be reminded to talk to your doctor about a specific issue you have? This type of platform is perfect for that. However, the more skeptical and savvy user can already see how a platform could gather and sell this data to bad actors, and the significant damage those actors could do. Imagine if a health insurance company wanted to spy on its users and try to deny healthcare for certain issues, or any number of health product companies manipulating users through their private information. These are realistic scenarios if the data isn’t secure and private.
For Vyvo and other high-ethics platforms like them, the protection of the data isn’t just part of the business model, it is the piece that ties it all together. By using Web3 to provably secure a user’s private data, and by using it to maximize the benefit of AI without selling that data to someone else, Vyvo can access very sensitive data from a user in an environment of verified trust. Users can see through Web3 security that their data is their own, but the AI tools can still provide those health-related benefits that can improve their lives. With their upcoming VAI token launch, the Vyvo economy model can also offer rewards and other incentives that allow users to access a growing range of services, and should they choose to share their data, they have complete control over the decision and can be rewarded as a result.
Looking Ahead at AI
AI is in a rough place right now in so many ways, but especially in the area of data privacy and the simple fact that our data has become a product that we create, but do not own and can’t control who buys it. Web3 is perhaps the only technology capable of tokenizing our data into verified ownership and security, allowing us to make full use of AI without having to sell our (digital) souls to get it. With any luck, this new model will be a shining example showing the best of both worlds, and we will see a digital data boom merging AI and Web3 together in a way that pushes AI forward, but not at the expense of our data and privacy.
Souce:Depositphotos
