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I’m curious as to what incentive people would have to provide their data to a public network. If they don’t, the premise of the article sort of falls apart. I

I’m curious as to what incentive people would have to provide their data to a public network. If they don’t, the premise of the article sort of falls apart. I personally think that you’ll end up disappointed if you’re investing in decentralization. I see blockchain being applied at companies like Maersk, but it’s not really decentralized because it’s mainly operated by Maersk and the only people they let on the nodes are their partners. ML is it’s own thing, the thing about ML is that it’s not really new. We’ve been doing manual data analytics since the birth of data, and all ML really does is digitize the analytic department. Right now it’s too expensive, too hard to utilize and requires data sets that are too huge for it to work, but eventually, it’ll automate much of your analytics department, because one data scientist will be able to do the work of x old school analysts, making it more efficient in terms of money. I think the reason only AI and Blockchain were ever put together was to sell snake oil, because why on earth would you use a terrible database to run ML? Even today we don’t run our analytics on live data, instead we construct separate data warehouses on database structures build for analytics. Good luck with your investments though, I personally put my “risky” investments into a robotics company called Odico and tripled the value. I think the truth about blockchain is that the fad is over. It’s been 9 years. At one point I could buy coffee with bitcoin, today I can’t even turn my remaining crypto into fiat.

grenoire 8y ago
I simply believe (as someone with an economics and GT background) that you are right on your first statement. The issue with these more 'utopic,' i.e. would be great but hasn't happened for reasons, is that the incentives to contribute to such systems are lacking on both societal and corporate levels. If data isn't just out there, that's because the owners thereof are better off keeping it for themselves. It just takes a lot of goodwill to counterweigh this lack of incentives.
leppr 8y ago
> I’m curious as to what incentive people would have to provide their data to a public network. When people talk about combining AI and Blockchain that's very often the exact problem they think Blockchain can tackle: programmatic transfer of value, so as to systematically compensate the data providers, in ways and quantities that'd be inconvenient to deal with otherwise. I won't bother finding a buyer for my car's windshield data if all that brings me is 50 cents a month. But if data from all my various devices can get me 100 bucks a month, and the set up and maintenance for the system is automated and trivial, I'm very likely to take the free money. The second aspect is that you don't need to provide your data to the whole network, simply to those who compensate you. Not everything needs to be on the blockchain. Thirdly, efforts are made into developing techniques that allow users to provide data for training, while keeping the identifying aspects, or even the whole data, private, either with simple k-anonymization or techniques that distribute the AI training part (Enigma does this iirc). Don't get stuck on the "blockchain as a database" part. What people are excited about is a whole field of cryptography and trustless decentralized networks.
- eksemplar 8y ago
  I get that, I just think the assumption that people are willing to sell their privacy data for petty cash is flawed. It’s not like traditional advertising haven’t tried similar approaches, and failed, largely because petty cash is a terrible motivator for most people. I guess you could argue that it’s different with crypto because your data is safer, but facebook has a billion users, and the people who’ve been doing the whole #deletefacebook thing, just signed up for Instagram instead. People really don’t care. Would you sell your data for $5 a month? Maybe $15? I wouldn’t, especially not if it took time to setup and maintain, and I have a gmail account.
  - matt4077 8y ago
    Plus: the people willing to sell their data for $5/month are absolutely worthless as advertising targets.
    - 1996 8y ago
      On the other hand, the intersection of these "people who want to sell for $5" to the general population gives some worthy targets!
  - notahacker 8y ago
    I think there are plenty of people who are sufficiently unconcerned about privacy data to sell it for $xx per month. I also think this set of people has literally no overlap with the set of people who care about whether the data broker is centralised or not or whether it's possible to obtain cryptographic proof of which entities have received the data
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - leppr 8y ago
    If I didn't have to worry about security, yes. So a system that sold my data for me while keeping it private, I would use. Same deal with AI assistants or Facebook-like social networks, I would use them if there was a way to check that they don't leak data. I believe cryptography will open these advances to huge untapped demographics.
mrb 8y ago
«I think the truth about blockchain is that the fad is over. It’s been 9 years. At one point I could buy coffee with bitcoin, today I can’t even turn my remaining crypto into fiat.» It's pretty clear that being able to transact and store digital money on your device itself (without any 3rd party having control of it) has huge practical applications. As I like to say, "buying coffee" is probably the least interesting thing you can do with Bitcoin. PS: today it has never been easier to turn your crypto into fiat; there are hundreds of exchanges around the world. Not sure why you'd say otherwise.
- josu 8y ago
  Also, you can buy coffee with bitcoin again paying almost 0 fees using lightning network.
free2rhyme214 8y ago
I don't think you understand what's really going on. Read more here - https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/blockchain-based-machine-learning-marketplaces-cb2d4dae2c17 https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/blockchain-based-machine-learnin...
- c0l0 8y ago
  I've rarely, if ever, seen such incredibly high readings from my bullshit-o-meter. But yeah, if you believe that "the best data" and "the best algorithms" merely need to come together (and will do so "through competition") to make useful, competent AI (with an actual "I" in there) a reality, I guess that's pretty cool stuff. vape

grenoire 8y ago

I simply believe (as someone with an economics and GT background) that you are right on your first statement. The issue with these more 'utopic,' i.e. would be great but hasn't happened for reasons, is that the incentives to contribute to such systems are lacking on both societal and corporate levels. If data isn't just out there, that's because the owners thereof are better off keeping it for themselves. It just takes a lot of goodwill to counterweigh this lack of incentives.

leppr 8y ago

> I’m curious as to what incentive people would have to provide their data to a public network. When people talk about combining AI and Blockchain that's very often the exact problem they think Blockchain can tackle: programmatic transfer of value, so as to systematically compensate the data providers, in ways and quantities that'd be inconvenient to deal with otherwise. I won't bother finding a buyer for my car's windshield data if all that brings me is 50 cents a month. But if data from all my various devices can get me 100 bucks a month, and the set up and maintenance for the system is automated and trivial, I'm very likely to take the free money. The second aspect is that you don't need to provide your data to the whole network, simply to those who compensate you. Not everything needs to be on the blockchain. Thirdly, efforts are made into developing techniques that allow users to provide data for training, while keeping the identifying aspects, or even the whole data, private, either with simple k-anonymization or techniques that distribute the AI training part (Enigma does this iirc). Don't get stuck on the "blockchain as a database" part. What people are excited about is a whole field of cryptography and trustless decentralized networks.

eksemplar 8y ago
I get that, I just think the assumption that people are willing to sell their privacy data for petty cash is flawed. It’s not like traditional advertising haven’t tried similar approaches, and failed, largely because petty cash is a terrible motivator for most people. I guess you could argue that it’s different with crypto because your data is safer, but facebook has a billion users, and the people who’ve been doing the whole #deletefacebook thing, just signed up for Instagram instead. People really don’t care. Would you sell your data for $5 a month? Maybe $15? I wouldn’t, especially not if it took time to setup and maintain, and I have a gmail account.
- matt4077 8y ago
  Plus: the people willing to sell their data for $5/month are absolutely worthless as advertising targets.
  - 1996 8y ago
    On the other hand, the intersection of these "people who want to sell for $5" to the general population gives some worthy targets!
- notahacker 8y ago
  I think there are plenty of people who are sufficiently unconcerned about privacy data to sell it for $xx per month. I also think this set of people has literally no overlap with the set of people who care about whether the data broker is centralised or not or whether it's possible to obtain cryptographic proof of which entities have received the data
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- leppr 8y ago
  If I didn't have to worry about security, yes. So a system that sold my data for me while keeping it private, I would use. Same deal with AI assistants or Facebook-like social networks, I would use them if there was a way to check that they don't leak data. I believe cryptography will open these advances to huge untapped demographics.

mrb 8y ago

«I think the truth about blockchain is that the fad is over. It’s been 9 years. At one point I could buy coffee with bitcoin, today I can’t even turn my remaining crypto into fiat.» It's pretty clear that being able to transact and store digital money on your device itself (without any 3rd party having control of it) has huge practical applications. As I like to say, "buying coffee" is probably the least interesting thing you can do with Bitcoin. PS: today it has never been easier to turn your crypto into fiat; there are hundreds of exchanges around the world. Not sure why you'd say otherwise.

josu 8y ago
Also, you can buy coffee with bitcoin again paying almost 0 fees using lightning network.

free2rhyme214 8y ago

I don't think you understand what's really going on. Read more here - https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/blockchain-based-machine-learning-marketplaces-cb2d4dae2c17 https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/blockchain-based-machine-learnin...

c0l0 8y ago
I've rarely, if ever, seen such incredibly high readings from my bullshit-o-meter. But yeah, if you believe that "the best data" and "the best algorithms" merely need to come together (and will do so "through competition") to make useful, competent AI (with an actual "I" in there) a reality, I guess that's pretty cool stuff. vape