Lots of the people constructing Web3 feel like the normal web ecosystem has taken advantage of users and their data. While it advantages a lot of businesses, data miners and even AI models, some see it as an overreach.
A number of the problems with the net that exists today, which some web3-focused people call web2.0, is it’s centralized, Tegan Kline, CEO and co-founder of Edge and Node said on TechCrunch’s Chain Response podcast.
“A handful of huge corporations own and control all the things that we see online, they own our data and our digital footprint they usually can de-platform us and so many wish to keep our attention they usually’re monetizing that spotlight,” Kline said. “It’s not the web we had high hopes for back within the early days of the net.”
She and others are attempting to vary that through web3 – and AI integrations. “We’re trying to appreciate that decentralized web and provides power back to the users.”
Edge and Node is an organization focused on creating and supporting decentralized applications (dApps) and protocols. It’s the initial team supporting The Graph, a decentralized network that indexes, queries and organizes data. It has been called the “Google of web3” and goals to arrange open blockchain data and make open data a public good.
The Graph has “subgraphs,” that are like open APIs that serve queries. So anytime a user uses an application that was built on The Graph, the indexers within the background organize the info and serve the knowledge.
“Web3 remains to be being built, we’re still working on constructing this decentralized web that’s censorship resistant. So, the innovation is going on today and I consider that that is where the web will go, this shall be the subsequent evolution of the web. It’s a growing industry versus a shrinking one.”
The Graph launched a roadmap for its “Recent Era” in November, to plan out how it could use its $50 million raise from last 12 months.
The objectives included expanding its data services to achieve a much bigger market, supporting developers, boosting network performance and creating tools for data, in easy terms. It also included plans to assist enable large language models, or LLMs, that are one of the vital popular methods for constructing AI chat programs, due to OpenAI, Kline noted.
“The one thing that’s really necessary about AI is that it’s all about data,” Kline said. “There’s a saying that who rules the info rules the world and so it really is essential that data shouldn’t be owned and controlled by anybody company, especially within the AI space.”
The Graph is working to permit users to take data from its network and other blockchains to coach AIs with that content. “Since we began The Graph, the use cases and data needs have exploded,” Kline said. “There are so many alternative data needs and The Graph network shall be there to serve all those needs in a decentralized way for entrepreneurs and builders within the ecosystem and the users of their applications and projects.”
And for AI, it’s necessary that they’re trained in a totally open source way, Kline thinks. “And when you have a look at even the open source AIs today, they’re open source in some ways, but the info that they’re trained with shouldn’t be open source.”
Because it stands today, nearly all of AI shouldn’t be on the blockchain-train, so to talk, yet. “In the event you go to a conventional AI conference, they don’t care,” Kline said. “I feel the blockchain space is slightly bit more serious about AI than AI is serious about the blockchain space.”
There must be a bit more acceptance within the AI community, but over time, Kline thinks that the AI and blockchain relationship will evolve and shift. “Using recent business models and recent incentive structures which have emerged via tokens and token economies and decentralized infrastructure, that’s where things will get really interesting for AI.”
This story was inspired by an episode of TechCrunch’s podcast Chain Response. Subscribe to Chain Response on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to listen to more stories and suggestions from the entrepreneurs constructing today’s most modern corporations.
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