What if companies rewarded users for their data? Review sites, search engines, travel sites and social media companies rake in billions for the data they control, connected with our personal preferences, histories and habits. This wealth is collective, but few users are reaping data rewards.
Taking the Data Back
People typically want the personal nature of their online habits respected. Yet, most of us daily give a great deal of information away. To some extent, the tide could be turning in 2018. This is the year of Cambridge Analytica’s downfall, after its exposure worldwide for acquiring, politicizing and commodifying personal information from some 87 million people on Facebook.
However, it’s not just the blatantly sleazy data grabbers that enrich themselves at people’s expense, some researchers now argue. People living in an era of artificial intelligence, in a very real sense, constantly contribute work associated with economic value.
In this argument, the data humans provide through our online activity—driving, shopping and so forth—is the work product of people who collectively create the intelligence on which AI is built. Now it’s time for people to reclaim the value of that work product.
Artificial Intelligence, Human Knowledge
Tech titans already pay for data on some levels. They contract with businesses that deploy raters of things online. This work might include checking the results of algorithms and deleting offensive or illicit content. It might include the captioning and tagging of graphics.
Mighty AI has trademarked the concept of “training data as a service” and pays people to generate the information needed to train algorithms used for self-driving cars, because #MachineLearning starts with human knowledge.
The more useful AI gets, the more high-quality information is needed to feed the algorithms. In the quest for good data, firms will need to establish budgets that ensure a supply.
The Miners of Social Media
Blockchain-based data reward systems have debuted that let people benefit from their personal contributions to the world online. Two examples, Mithril and Steemit, pay brand evangelists and photo sharers, and reward their users based on numbers of interactions.
Steepshot, an Instagram-like application from Steemit, rewards people for sharing pictures and attracting positive votes. Users earn Steem and transfer the value to a crypto exchange that supports it.
And Mithril, built on the Ethereum blockchain, rewards keen contributors based on the concept of social mining. Users can mine MITH, an experimental crypto asset, based on an algorithm that quantifies the power of each user to influence others. Engaging with other users’ content expands a user’s follower base, increasing a person’s reward-worthy reach.
The personal factors and skills involved in supplying useful data will likely be widely distributed throughout populations. Thus, payment for data could be a great, global equalizer.
Looking Ahead to Data Rewards
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation reflects an emerging consensus that people need rights over the data they supply online. New legal frameworks (and ethical ones such as a cryptocurrency code of conduct) are needed to spur the emergence of a new, equitable data economy. Meanwhile, users and companies are beginning to realize the potential of data rewards.
Blockchain is already affecting how AI operates, and data rewards could be the next step giving users more individual control over their futures.
Renovatio PR is working with startups that are advancing innovation in blockchain and crypto assets. Learn more about what we do.