I used OpenLedger for a while. I realized that most artificial intelligence data systems do not actually care about the people who are giving them information.
At first I looked at OpenLedger like I look at other artificial intelligence projects.
It is another system that talks about data.
It is another protocol that says artificial intelligence needs incentives.
It is another attempt to connect people who contribute information, models and rewards into one system.
After spending some time with OpenLedger what caught my attention was not the artificial intelligence part.
It was how people behave around the data itself.
This part felt different.
Most artificial intelligence systems today think that data is never-ending.
They act like the internet will always give them human input forever.
They take information from forums, tweets, research, conversations and other things. They use it to make models and then they turn it into something they call intelligence.
Nobody really asks where the motivation to keep giving information comes from.
That idea started to seem weak to me a months ago.
Because once people realize that their behavior is valuable they might not give away information for free anymore.
I think OpenLedger is one of the projects that is actually thinking about this problem instead of pretending it does not exist.
They are not perfect. At least they are honest about it.
The interesting thing is how they separate the idea of intelligence models from data ownership.
Most projects care a lot about the model layer.
OpenLedger seems to care about how people work together to contribute information.
Who gives information?
Who checks if it is correct?
Who makes sure the quality is good over time?
Who should get credit if the information becomes valuable later?
This sounds simple. It is not easy to do.
Because people do not always give information.
Some people try to cheat the system.
Communities can work together to fool the system.
Bad information can spread faster than information.
This is where many decentralized artificial intelligence ideas start to fall
In systems companies can control this by being in charge.
They can quietly remove information.
They can hide actors.
They can use data that nobody can see.
Openledger cannot do that.
Everything is about making sure people have a reason to give information.
That is a hard problem to solve.
What I noticed about OpenLedger is that they seem to know about this problem
They do not think all information is equally valuable.
That matters a lot.
Because the biggest lie in intelligence today is that having more information automatically means having better intelligence.
That is not true anymore.
The internet is already full of information that is used to make more artificial information.
At some point models stop learning from life and start learning from each other.
You can already see this happening online.
People are saying the things.
They are using the words.
It feels like artificial intelligence's taking over.
That is why OpenLedgers focus on making sure information is real caught my attention more than the intelligence part.
The project feels like building another model and more like trying to build a system that remembers how information is created.
That is a problem.
It might be the more important one.
I still have a lot of questions.
One thing I do not fully understand is how the quality of information will stay good once people can make a lot of money from it.
Early systems always look clean.
There are not people using them.
The people who use them are very interested in the technology.
There is not a lot of pressure to make money.
What happens when people start using the system just to make money?
Because that always happens.
When people can make money from something they start to think about how to make the money not about how to give good information.
I think OpenLedger knows about this risk.
I am not sure if any system can fully solve this problem.
Especially when artificial intelligence information becomes very valuable.
Another thing I was thinking about was whether OpenLedgers way of giving credit to people who give information will actually change who has power.
Will it just create another layer on top of the companies that already have a lot of power?
Because if big companies can just use the information from OpenLedger, who will really get the benefit in the run?
The people who give information?
The system that coordinates everything?
The companies that have the computers to process the information?
That relationship is still not clear.
Maybe nobody has the answer yet.
At least OpenLedger is asking the right questions.
That alone makes it different from other artificial intelligence projects.
Most systems today think that information comes from nowhere.
OpenLedger treats information like it is something that people work hard to create.
That changes everything.
You start thinking about taking information and more about how people participate.
Less about who owns the information and more about how to make sure the information is trustworthy.
I also noticed that the community around OpenLedger is slower than cryptocurrency projects.
It is not dead.
It is just slower.
That might not be a bad thing.
Real projects usually look boring before they become important.
Fast and exciting projects often do not have a foundation.
There are also some uncomfortable truths.
What happens if people start giving information just to get a reward?
What happens when artificial intelligence can create information that's as good as human information?
Who decides what is true when truth is not clear?
If everything people do is turned into a token do people become more valuable or more exploited?
That question stayed in my head for a time.
I started using OpenLedger to think about intelligence.
I ended up thinking more about why people do things.
That change in perspective taught me more about how to think about information, than meetings I had before.
Not because OpenLedger had all the answers.
Because it showed me where the real questions are.
