From AI Week comes a provocation that can change the way we think about artificial intelligence: if you don’t own the infrastructure, you are just lending your brain to someone else.
The new frontier of AI is not (only) technological, but philosophical
During a speech at AI Week, a speaker delivered a message that echoes like an alarm bell in the tech landscape:
“Not your API, not your intelligence.”
A simple sentence, but full of meaning. A direct analogy with the crypto world – “Not your keys, not your coins” – that brings a new awareness:
If the artificial intelligence you use depends on an external API, it is not really your intelligence.
You are just delegating cognitive power to someone else.
Today we use centralized AI. And we don’t realize it
Every day millions of people use tools like ChatGPT, Google Translate, Copilot and similar ones.
But few ask themselves: “Where do my data end up?” or “Who really controls this intelligence?”
Behind the apparent convenience lies a centralized system that:
Collects your data
Decide what you can do and what you cannot
Can be deactivated at any time
It is an AI “as a service”, and this means one thing: you do not have control over it.
AI Sovereignty: the challenge of the next 10 years
As for Bitcoin, the key is sovereignty.
The speaker presented a revolutionary project: QBack, a decentralized infrastructure designed to build private, local, and interoperable AI agents, capable of operating:
No internet connection
Without API key
On any device, even a 30€ smartphone
The dream? To create a peer-to-peer AI platform where each user owns, trains, and uses their own artificial intelligence, without relying on any company.
From BitTorrent to blockchain: decentralized technologies at the service of AI
To build this vision, the team is using already known and tested technologies:
BitTorrent, for serverless distributed communication
Blockchain, to add advanced encryption and privacy by design
Open source, to ensure transparency, auditability, and equitable access
After seven years of work, the first SDK (software development kit) will be released in September, with hundreds of modules on GitHub. Every developer will be able to contribute, test, improve.
A disturbing scenario: 1 billion robots connected to a single data center
The speaker posed a disturbing yet realistic question:
“How would we feel if in 10 years there were 1 billion intelligent robots, all connected to a single data center managed by a single company?”
A dystopian nightmare? Not quite. With the current direction of AI, it is a scenario closer than we think.
Concrete examples: Cuba Translate and Cuba Health
To demonstrate that decentralization is possible already today, two working prototypes have been presented:
Cuba Translate: a translation app that works completely offline, on every device, without sending data to any server.
Cuba Health: a health tracking system similar to Apple Health, but completely private, that processes data such as heartbeat, sleep, and habits directly on the device.
These tools demonstrate that privacy is not an obstacle to innovation, but a technological choice.
If you don’t own your AI, you’re just the user
The future of artificial intelligence is not only played out on the hardware or algorithm front.
It is played out in terms of control, governance, and ownership.
Just as Bitcoin has freed money from banking monopolies, decentralized AI can free us from dependence on big tech.
But to do so, awareness is needed. Community is needed. A new digital philosophy is needed.
Not your API, not your intelligence.
It’s time to take back our digital mind.
