Bringing humanity back to progress
Doesn’t it SUCK that data centers seem to be the main focus of the wealthiest on the planet, with governments keenly supportive? I mean, why wouldn’t they be? It’s plainly the most AMAZING thing after all. We can train AIs, host more data, expand our data science pipelines…
Isn’t that wonderful?
It is. I’m not anti-AI, however, at a minimum, you’d need a significant multi-individual organization before you can do any of that (the current AI ecosystem relies on hundreds of thousands of people) (Interface., 2026). Not to say that the individual cannot benefit from such a development, they most certainly can! Localised foundation models running on their own, powering governments and branched LLM models with global AI companies building local pools of their AI within regions or nations (hopefully with some local or regional legislation to place the guardrails and guide them toward safety) are great IMO!
However, my positivity assumes local policy and regulation gets sophisticated enough that data generated within a locality stays within that locality. I don’t want the implementation to restrict global data sharing, I just believe having a much more granular and appropriately denser legal framework to deal with this is indispensable, as the world is becoming more and more sensitive, with more and more variables needing to be considered at lower and lower uncertainties and accuracy. It is gravely important that this does not inhibit exchange and business. Perhaps the blockchain network can be adapted to the needs here, but that’s a whole ANOTHER story.
I am a little bit more open to data sharing than most people, I think data is wonderful, and companies using our data is an excellent opportunity for better services, better products and less waste. Unfortunately, companies do justify the value added from their clever use of user data to the products or services themselves and charge more! Isn’t that a little odd? Maybe business to business sales make it a little more reasonable, but your customer paying twice? Once by buying the product/service, or even participating in it as in the case of a platform like Youtube (in this case perhaps paying 3 times), and on top, having the organization responsible for that product/service make active income off of it and charge you for the income that they make from you. It’s strange, it’s unsustainable, knowing how automation is coming. Proton has explored this, with a focus in the US (Proton., 2025).
Governments seem a little un-proactive. A proposed solution that I’ve seen through my Youtube surfing, such as just fixed UBI (Universal Basic Income) removes accountability from corporations. Instead of leveraging the data activity records, and keeping corporations accountable by making sure the UBI that each individual obtains is based on how each of the corporations use the specific individual’s data and how much revenue they generate from it. Computer scientist Jaron Lanier and economist Glen Weyl have argued for this too, while I stumbled upon this idea crudely on my own while thinking on a drive back home.
Get Harrish Panicker’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
It is important that there is a fixed base income, as is the case, there WILL be a pareto distribution of revenue generated by individuals (I’m hoping this income comes from people and their work, not that automation has taken all the jobs away that people have no means to earn income, I think this is catastrophic, because humans, not AI are the most advanced connection to life IMO).
While data activity on a per individual basis is important, I think people having access to more granular transparency is important, such that we can record and choose what to boil down into necessary patterns for legislation. There is also the difficulty with the sheer costs associated with tracking such a minute, but high volume activity. Not to mention the losses obtained from using user data. There is a possibility to argue that losses are really attributed to white collar crime but I do believe it is possible that wrong decisions and risks were taken (non-illegal and non-shady), consequently leading to drops in share prices, revenue etc. A one-to-one relation will require the entire society to be alright and in harmony with this, and this is not necessary. There is no one way to live and govern. China is proving that, at least.
With that said, implementing data dividends, data accountability, privacy and sovereignty are definitely difficult, but we’ve done many difficult, impossible things before and I do believe there is a need for this with the online and real world merging and blending into one another. That’s why employers look at private (even if public) accounts of their employees or candidates they’re hiring for is a concern. You wouldn’t want an employer to stalk you to gauge whether you’re worth hiring. I understand that it’s reasonable to minimize risks, but I feel there must be a line, otherwise anything goes, and anyone can do anything and justify it. It will take time and senators in the US have extensively started exploring this too.
There’s an additional point to this too. Acknowledgment. Corporations and people were never separate, the most successful ones, like Steam, deeply acknowledge and respect that. Again, “success” can be defined in so many ways, but it does take history, perhaps beyond our death before “success” can be absolutely defined. With that said, for what I think genuine success is, Steam is among the list of corporations that have it. Data is so important to these companies partly because of that too, they want to desperately get more and more granular when understanding their companies, and organizations. Even if they don’t always admit it, all companies have this deep curiosity over their customers and humans, as well as the environment and the universe. A plain example, a small business like the bakery shop around your corner, street or town. They deal with the ingredients required to make baked goods, which requires some understanding behind how they’re made, relating to the farmers, soil, air etc. Furthermore, there’s customer feedback, explicit or implicit. What goes out of sale first? Why? So on and so on, that’s why entrepreneurs are such wonderful people…usually.
It is also why it is inescapable. You want granularity and serious sophisticated power? That’s simple (not easy but simple). More data centers! More compute power! More high value employees! More AI based workflows and automation! HUGEEE macro figures too! But I ask you, what is the point of endless numeric growth? It must be tangible too, and it is not always tangible with macroeconomic data or the frequent financial metrics used by executives and shareholders.
Numbers are grounded with desire and human ideals anyways. Whatever the balance sheet is or whatever the macroeconomic KPIs are, there is always qualitative interpretive work that the executives of a company must respect, be curious of and execute with reference to.
I have recently finished my studies and started looking for jobs. I remember getting rejected by this AI company focused on market research. I’m not sure why they did it, but I mentioned the importance of micro-economics as opposed to just macro-economics in it. I do wonder if that left a bad taste in the hirer’s mouth. It makes me wonder if there is a resistance to this openness. That there needs to be as much separation and clear defining away of our humanity for success? Otherwise, I’m just a lame candidate who doesn’t have 3 years of experience fresh out of university. :p
Considering cashbacks, points, reward based systems, it’s clear corporations do have humanity in mind to an extent, it’s just about the next better step and ensuring it is done safely and for the innovations that are great to be here now to be explored and used as soon as possible and for the more experimental and risky developments to be reasonably introduced at a decent pace.
But... such is life, things will always be “unjust” and that won’t happen absolutely.
I guess I’ll leave you with that sort of ponder.
Thank you for reading.
