THE SHOW
"How much is your data worth?"
It's all about this one question.
Citizens of the free world made a Faustian bargain with the big software companies roughly twenty years ago that went like this: ‘show us how the internet will make our lives easier, and we’ll give you our data.’ We did not knowingly make this agreement, but we made it all the same. Now, roughly 30 years after the advent of the public internet, some of those tech companies have become not only the wealthiest but the most powerful companies in the world. Six of the top 10 wealthiest companies are tech companies that built their empires from YOUR data.
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We believe you deserve to earn income from the data you generate.
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That's what the Tao of Data show is about.
Core problems addressed in the Show
01
AI Run Amok
Every major AI developer in the world signed a petition that calls for AI regulation and responsible development. Jeffrey Hinton, VP of AI at Google stepped down from his role to call attention to the dangers of AI run amok. Elon Musk has repeatedly stated that ‘AI is a greater threat to humanity than nuclear war.’ There are two ways to curb dystopian AI. The first way is top down; governments of the world agreeing on responsible AI development. The second way is bottoms up; reduce the amount of public data available for the large AI companies to scrape and feed to their models.
02
Government/Corporate Collusion
Almost every major social media platform has a division dedicated to dealing with some government agency or another. There is a growing and alarming collusion between big tech companies and government entities. Starting with the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2017 and culminating with The Twitter Files at the end of last year, we have seen repeated abuses of our data. Government agencies have back door access through the major social media companies to censor and surveil average citizens. Further, roughly â…” of global citizens have had their data hacked. The current data infrastructure is corrupt and predatory toward the average internet user. Individual data ownership fights this form of digital fascism and reduces the ability for government agencies and corporations to collude to inhibit civil liberties.
03
Wealth Inequality
Throughout history, when wealth inequality reaches unsustainable levels, coups typically follow in short order. Nobody wants the instability that comes with a near-zero middle class. Individual data ownership offers a new revenue stream for internet users. Further, tokenized assets allows both fractional ownership of valuable assets while also lowering the barrier for entry. For example, less than 2% of Americans are accredited investors, meaning, 98% of Americans have little or no access to institutional grade investments, venture capital or private equity. Tokenized assets enabled by data ownership principles and technology would allow a greater percentage of the global population to invest in the best assets.
Why Data Ownership Matters
2.5Q
According to IBM, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. If bytes were stars, this is the equivalent of 25 Milky Way galaxies, each with 100B stars. And this pace is accelerating with the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), social media, and other digital platforms.
79%
A Pew Research Center survey found that 79% of Americans are concerned about the way their personal data is being used by companies. And that figure is rising year over year amongst each of the five adult generations currently alive today.
$319B
The data brokerage industry, which is focused on buying and selling consumer data, was valued at $319 billion in 2022 according to independent market research firms. That figure is expected to double in the next five years.
“We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.”
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- A Cypherpunks Manifesto by Eric Hughes, 1993.