You’re swimming in information. You’re creating new information day-after-day. In case your well being app counts your steps? That’s new information. The Oura ring that’s monitoring your bio-metrics? Priceless information. Your social media posts, even the silly jokes that obtained zero likes? Extra information.
That is all information that AI corporations would love to reap. You may’t construct good AI with out good information, which is why many view information because the “new oil’ within the race for AI. The issue, although, is that whereas your information is efficacious in concept, the truth is that it’s arduous to monetize your individual private information, as you don’t have any leverage as a person. (Open AI isn’t knocking at your door to purchase your outdated tweets.)
Enter Vana. “I feel information is that this elementary useful resource powering the following technology of AI, and actually the following technology of our digital financial system,” says Anna Kazlauskas, co-founder of Vana and CEO of Open Information Labs. “Lots of people frankly simply do not understand that they really personal their information.”
However you do personal your information. And it’s precious… for those who can one way or the other be part of forces with thousands and thousands of others who additionally personal their information. This could provide you with bargaining energy. And that’s the mission of Vana: To create an ecosystem for user-owned information, which in flip fuels user-owned AI.
That ecosystem includes a mixture of Information DAOs (a “labor union” for information), decentralized information marketplaces, the lately launched VRC-20 token, and a brand new collaboration with Flower Labs to construct the world’s first user-owned foundational mannequin. (Exhibit A that Decentralized AI is creeping into the mainstream: The Vana/Flower collaboration was coated by WIRED.)
Kazlauskas will give a keynote on the AI Summit at Consensus 2025 outlining this imaginative and prescient, and he or she offers a glimpse right here. And she or he sees the momentum shifting. “We’re already beginning to see this shift the place extra individuals understand that, ‘My information is absolutely vital to AI’ and ‘I’m really the proprietor of that.’” She predicts that in a number of years, over 100 million customers can be onboard. In 10 years? “World inhabitants. Above 10 billion.”
Interview has been condensed and evenly edited for readability.
Why is user-owned information so vital to you?
Anna Kazlauskas: Most individuals assume information is owned by the platforms that it is sitting on, however that is not the case. In the identical method that once you put your automotive in a parking zone, the parking zone would not personal your automotive. You may all the time take it again. You’ve got full possession over it.
And there is a large sum of money being made as we speak, largely by huge tech corporations, off of that information, however customers are the authorized homeowners. So I feel it is vital that we restore that possession, each from a person perspective and from a developer’s perspective.
Are you able to join the dots of how this helps builders?
As a developer, particularly in an AI world, getting access to the best information is absolutely vital. And it is tremendous arduous to do proper now, as a result of a lot of the information is locked up inside the walled gardens of huge tech. So a lot of my actually sensible associates who do stuff in AI go work on the huge labs, as a result of that is the place the info is and that’s the place the compute is. However that does not must be the case.
How do Information DAOs match into this imaginative and prescient precisely?
So a DataDAO is sort of like a labor union for information. The place mainly you’ve a big group of people that pool their information collectively, after which could make collective selections over what occurs to that information.
The explanation why that is vital is that your information, by itself, shouldn’t be that helpful, proper? It is far more helpful when there is a huge pool of it. When there’s sufficient of it to coach an AI mannequin.
What are a few of the Information DAOs you’re most excited by?
There are a number of within the well being area which might be actually fascinating. There’s an early one which’s really doing full exports of affected person medical data, which I feel can actually assist advance lots of analysis within the area. There’s some associated to biometrics, sleep, and well being. There’s one with the DLP [Driver Loyalty Program] Labs; they’re constructing automotive information. And inside their data-set, the Tesla information is absolutely fascinating as a result of most individuals take into consideration Tesla as precious as a result of they’ve a knowledge lead, proper? Really, the customers can get lots of that data-set.
You’re pivoting from concept to observe with the brand new collaboration with Flower Labs to construct COLLECTIVE-1. What’s the objective there?
COLLECTIVE-1 is the primary user-owned basis mannequin. Often when individuals take into consideration a basis mannequin, they sometimes consider one firm operating a really massive coaching job in a single information heart, proper? Like OpenAI. And the explanation why it is sometimes finished in a centralized method is as a result of it requires, one, a complete lot of compute energy, and two, a complete lot of information.
Flower AI is sort of the chief in federated [decentralized] coaching. They’ve finished a very nice job of constructing these nice open supply libraries. They’ve are available in from the coaching aspect and the algorithm aspect. And with Vana, we actually concentrate on that information piece, proper? So we mainly have all this information that individuals can prepare on. Then you definitely give customers end-ownership of the mannequin, and customers can determine on what the mannequin is allowed to do? So that is the primary basis mannequin of its variety.
And the speculation is that ultimately, with higher information, you’ll be able to construct AI that’s not simply aggressive with the central gamers however higher, is that proper? So it’s not nearly ideology, but additionally efficiency.
Precisely, yeah that’s 100% proper. From a decentralized context, I feel typically individuals agree in precept that, “Sure, we should always have AI that is owned by the individuals. We must always have decentralized AI.” However what’s the factor that we are able to really do higher in a decentralized context? Information is the reply. For every firm, they solely have their single slice of a data-set. Apple’s obtained their information. Google’s obtained their information. However for those who’re going by means of the person, you’ll be able to reduce throughout platforms and truly construct higher data-sets than any single firm. Information is the key sauce that makes all of it work.
Adore it. Thanks Anna, see you on the AI Summit in Toronto.
Jeff Wilser will host the AI Summit at Consensus 2025, and is host of The Folks’s AI: The Decentralized AI Podcast.
