Listen, I recently came across a very interesting opinion from Manuk Termaaten, founder of Vertical Studio AI. He says that the artificial intelligence market today is dominated by only about a hundred large companies, mainly from the United States and China. These giants, using centralized AI technologies, control almost the entire industry, and this poses serious risks to society and the future of the digital world.
Why is that? Imagine that these companies have enormous financial resources and connections that allow them not only to develop AI, but also to actually dictate the rules of the game. At the same time, real problems also occur — for example, Microsoft Copilot got into scandals due to the generation of unacceptable content, and the closed source code of such systems makes it impossible to understand exactly how decisions are made. Another example is Citadel's trading algorithms, which are rumored to have manipulated markets, or Google's Maven military project, which has caused ethical controversy within the company itself.
All these stories show that centralized AI can be not only opaque, but also socially and ethically dangerous. At the same time, there is the idea of a decentralized AI — DeAI, which is based on open source, community management and transparency. This approach offers a chance to create safer, more sustainable and more democratic technologies.
However, so far, decentralized projects do not have the same resources as the giants. This is a real David versus Goliath battle. Moreover, nation-states, such as Russia and China, are also actively investing in the development of centralized systems, realizing the strategic importance of AI.
However, the future may lie with decentralized AI, thanks to its advantages in privacy, resilience to disruption, and access democratization. To do this, the industry needs to develop clear standards and promote a unified strategy without compromising.
As a result, if we want to preserve digital freedom and democracy in the age of AI, it is important to understand how to avoid the dominance of centralized corporations and states.
Do you think it's possible, given the current concentration of resources and power, to really make AI truly decentralized and democratic?
