AI has fascinated us since we first heard of it, and to this day remains to be a polarizing piece of technology that is yet to be fully understood by us humans. Some fear it, some love it – and sooner or later, we’ll all have major touchpoints with it, one way or the other.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming the cool kid on the block, with its incredible abilities to crunch numbers, analyze patterns, and make life easier across numerous industries. By now, you’ve probably heard about ChatGPT and its impact in the recent months. With now easier than ever implementation in work environments, AI will continue to make repetitive processes handled by humans a thing of the past. Let’s face the unpleasant truth: yes, this will cost jobs – but it will create new ones at the same time.
One reason for that is, that there's a not-so-fun side to AI: it can sometimes have a biased attitude – language models or engines are the brainchild of a specific group of people, that, quite naturally, have specific interests, views, and opinions. We don’t know that much about AI just yet – as with any new technology, we need to keep track of what’s happening very closely. AI needs monitoring, mentoring, adjusting – a job only humans seem fit, at least at the moment.
Talking about monitoring: we’ve seen AIs become racist before – Tay was a chatbot that was released by Microsoft on Twitter in 2016. It was designed to mimic language patterns of a typical American girl in her late teens from interacting with human users on Twitter. What sounded interesting at first became a disaster 16 hours later: The bot began to post inflammatory and offensive tweets through its account – leaving Microsoft with no other choice but to shut it down.
With AI, there’s one rule to understand: what you feed it with, it will become. This rule will stand for as long as we don’t see a model gain conciseness, from which point it can decide by itself what to do next. Herein lies buried one of humanity’s greatest fears: Machines taking over the world. With development happening so rapidly at the moment, it seems to be only a question of time, when this will happen. So, can we do anything to stop judgement day from ever happening? Should we be afraid? Short answer is: yes and no.
Well, first of all, we’re not even remotely close to producing a machine that is fully aware of itself. For the moment, we’ve got other things to worry about. As I said in the beginning, AIs are paving their way into our everyday lives, so we need to make sure they serve us users equally and fairly. Luckily, we have a technology at hand, that could help us in achieving exactly that.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) - A Quick Primer
In essence, a DAO is a decentralized organization that operates autonomously based on predefined rules and consensus mechanisms. It's a digital organism that enables decision-making and resource allocation to be executed through a transparent and distributed network of participants, without the need for a central authority. This model provides a unique framework for collaboration and collective decision-making.
In short: It’s the thing that regulates an ecosystem just the way the community wants it to be regulated – leading us to a very interesting opportunity: This concept can be used in the creation of AIs that ought to represent and serve its users in a non-biased and inclusive way.
DAOs inherently promote transparency and accountability in the development of AI. All decisions, updates, and changes to the technology are recorded on a public, tamper-proof ledger, allowing participants to track progress and ensure fairness throughout the entire process. This transparency can help to identify and address any bias in the technology, contributing to the development of more inclusive and equitable AI systems – whatever their purpose may later be. The consensus is always ensured and validated by the blockchain.
Thereby, contrary to centralized organizational structures, a key advantage of DAOs is the community-driven governance model. Participants in a DAO can vote on proposals, contribute to discussions, and help to shape the direction of the AI development – provided of course, that the community itself is diverse and acts inclusive and kind-hearted – if this is not the case, the AI won’t be inclusive as well. But to keep it simple:
This collective approach encourages the inclusion of diverse viewpoints, fostering a more robust, unbiased, and representative AI system.
As we said earlier, traditional AI development is often driven by the interests of a few powerful entities, which may lead to biased or exclusionary technologies. DAOs, on the other hand, decentralize funding and resource allocation, enabling the community to decide where resources should be directed. This ensures that projects and initiatives that promote inclusivity and fairness receive the attention and support they deserve.
DAOs enable a dynamic, iterative approach to AI development. As new issues, biases, or opportunities are identified, the DAO community can vote on proposals to address these concerns, ensuring that AI continuously evolves and improves to meet the needs of all users.
So, in conclusion, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations have the potential to revolutionize the development of AI and Large Language Models by fostering inclusive, non-biased, and fair technologies that truly serve the global community. By embracing the principles of democratized access, transparent development, community-driven governance, decentralized funding, and continuous improvement, DAOs are paving the way for a new era of AI that is more equitable and representative of the diverse world we live in. As AI continues to shape the future, it is crucial that we explore and adopt innovative models like DAOs to ensure that the benefits of these powerful technologies are accessible to all. The collective intelligence and diversity of perspectives within DAOs can lead to the creation of AIs that are more inclusive, unbiased, and truly representative of the world's needs.
By harnessing the power of decentralization and community-driven governance, we can work together to build AI systems that are not only more powerful and useful but also more equitable and fairer. So, let's embrace the collective revolution of DAOs and usher in a new age of truly inclusive and non-biased AI development for the betterment of all.
