Decentralised AI has the potential to upend the online economy

Most AI giants on the internet rely on the continuous collection of personal data from their users, primarily to build and maintain machine-learning models. These models are often core to the value proposition of these companies, providing recommendations, behavioural analytics and consumer insights not only to their own services, but to associated advertising networks. This practice, however, comes at a cost to individuals. The repeated delivery of ads by third-party services creates excessive bandwidth and energy usage, something consumers are noticing as ongoing data collection and analysis by background apps slows their internet connection. And, as many recent cases have shown, there are now serious privacy concerns from excessive data collection and the resulting exposure from linkages of personal data across different services.