DAIA — A brief summary
A brief summary about the Decentralized AI Alliance
DAIA — the Decentralized AI Alliance — is a new industry organization joining together companies, nonprofits and labs working on Artificial Intelligence systems and tools from a perspective of decentralized, participatory control and guidance.
DAIA will foster cooperation on software and hardware projects — supporting members in working together on building practical tools benefiting the decentralized AI community generally. It will coordinate the definition of standards, such as protocols and ontologies. It will organize events and media as appropriate, and will provide members with support on IP and legal issues and other matters of common importance. It will also affiliate with investment funds and philanthropic foundations interested in directing resources to decentralized AI, assisting them with sourcing and vetting investments and other operations as needed.
Decentralized AI in 2018
In 2018 and going forward, AI is no longer just an area of intellectual research or a source of back-end software components — it’s a critical part of the strategies and tactics of governments, global corporations, non profit organizations, foundations, civil society and United Nations entities, and more. The general population is increasingly aware of the key role AI plays in their lives today, and the greater role it will play going forward. Even the non-expert can now see that self-driving cars, smartphone assistants and online ad placement and news prioritization engines are just the beginning.
With AI growing in power and influence, the issue of AI control and guidance becomes critical. By what dynamics will the global society and economy guide the development and deployment of AI systems and tools and the access of these AIs to critical natural and human data?
DAIA exists to gather together organizations building tools and systems oriented toward ensuring these dynamics are decentralized and participatory — so that all of humanity can participate in the next stages of development of Artificial Intelligence, in a transparent and collaborative way.
DAIA is founded on the premise that making AI more decentralized, democratic and participatory is important for combating current issues such as wealth inequality and data privacy, and also for accelerating the development of AI technologies toward a broad scope of applications.
DAIA is also inspired by the belief that the decentralization of AI is important for the future of humanity and sentient life in general. If Ray Kurzweil and others are correct that a Technological Singularity is near, then the nature of this Singularity is going to depend on what kind of advanced Artificial General Intelligences are first unleashed on the world. DAIA aims to ensure that the first powerful AGIs are benevolent, democratic, accountable/responsible/transparent (aligned with ART), participatory and decentralized in nature.
Realizing the DAIA Dream
The concept behind DAIA is that, by coming together in a more formal way, the AI-meets-blockchain projects of the world will be able to create a more and more formidable ecosystem, capable of meeting the world’s AI needs in a participatory, democratic and decentralized way.
DAIA was initially announced by leaders of two projects operating at the intersection of AI and blockchain — Ben Goertzel from SingularityNET and Toufi Saliba from AI Decentralized. But the roster of member organizations is going to grow rapidly. At a meetup in Hong Kong Science Park after the Token 2049 event earlier this year, SingularityNET leaders met with founders and leaders from a number of other blockchain/AI project, resulting in broad enthusiasm for joining and contributing to DAIA. Now that the DAIA concept is being formalized into an active organization, we expect DAIA to assume increasing influence, serving to amplify and focus the power of its member organizations in the blockchain and AI worlds.
Governments, global corporations, non profit organizations, foundations, civil society and United Nations entities, and more are invited to participate in DAIA along with startup projects, research labs and other sorts of entities. The mission is to militate toward decentralized modes of dynamics and control, regardless of the types and balance of formal organizations involved. However, DAIA believes that we should not rely on large, established entities to lead the shift toward a decentralized AI ecosystem; rather, they should be invited as partners in the DAIA movement, participating equally with younger and smaller members.
By growing the technology and community aspects of the AI-meets-blockchain ecosystem, DAIA members will create a flourishing and diverse practical economy based on the decentralized paradigm for AI. Pursued in this collaborative manner, decentralized AI will massively raise both the IQ and the participatory needs of every aspect of human society and economy.
Text by Dr. Ben Goertzel
How can you get involved?
The vision of DAIA is to foster a world where AI technologies and associated data are made open with decentralized, democratic control for the benefit of all sentient beings.
The immense potential of AI means that it can either increase the inequalities of our societies or liberate us from numerous sufferings. We believe the best way forward is to come together and work practically toward creating a better future. We see a massive potential for evolution in the established centralized corporations. We believe these tech giants can contribute immensely toward making the vision of DAIA a reality.
DAIA welcomes the participation of those corporations that are sincere about their aim and goal of democratizing AI. The open access networks that have come together to form DAIA, such as SingularityNET, Dbrain, Toda, are the enabling layer for such a democratization process.
To learn more about us and inquire for memberships, please contact us at team@daia.foundation.
