Chris Dawe is the CEO and a founding member of Effec.AI, an Amsterdam based company that is working on a blockchain-powered, decentralized platform for Artificial Intelligence development and AI related services.
What is your background?
My business background is primarily in sales and marketing, but I have also been a serial entrepreneur since the age of 6. All my life I have been building businesses. Recently I have been managing tech development teams with a focus on artificial intelligence.
How did Effect.AI begin?
Like any great startup Effect.AI began over a few beers. About two years ago I was working at a digital agency building complex systems for businesses. A few of us at the company were interested in artificial intelligence having built such solutions into the systems of some of our clients. Some were also attracted to blocking technologies and cryptocurrencies, and we would have passionate conversations about our visions for a more advanced future. Two founding members of Effect.AI had let me know they were thinking about relocating to Silicon Valley to take part in the technology scene over there. That is when I told them I had written a white paper. Now I am not the most technical member of the team, so they thought it was a little strange. But I asked them for their thoughts, and they read through it. Over the next couple days, we formulated a tangible business idea and Effect.AI was born.
What is the mission of Effect.AI?
The long-term vision of Effect.AI is to ensure artificial intelligence is built ethically by global citizens to eliminate friction in our everyday lives, allowing us to focus on the things that really matter to us. Our short-term vision, similarly, is to have people collectively structure data globally on our platform to build ethical artificial intelligence.
What do you think is so valuable about your relationship with DAIA?
Initially Effect.AI took a competitive approach to the data space. But you learn at different times in life collaboration and the support of others is incredibly important. To be able to compete in an industry dominated by the likes of Facebook and Google we must work as a collective to help shape the future of artificial intelligence. I think DAIA is still in its infancy of organizing the power of the many, but it is an important part of the puzzle in that it gathers all the puzzle pieces on the same table. The effect DAIA has in bringing all of us together under one roof, enabling us to collaborate and grow together is much more powerful than just one of us trying to take on the challenge of building a democratic and open artificial intelligence.
What is Effect.AI currently working on, and what can we expect to see from Effect.AI in the future?
The Effect.AI project outline is broken down into a three-phase overlapping rollout of platforms to help build, monetize, and then run artificial intelligence solutions. Our first phase is cleaning dirty data. We are building a data annotation platform for artificial intelligence developers to have their data sets cleaned up and turned into high-quality training data for their models. It operates as a micro-tasking platform by incorporating a global workforce and real-time, borderless pay for completed tasks.
We just finished up our pilot program in the country of Georgia where we took twelve university students and had them structure vast quantities of data for a few of our clients to show the UN we can create better paying jobs in Georgia, or any country for that matter. We got encouraging feedback and support from the United Nations and the Georgian government, so we are moving forward with that partnership by building our first impact hub. These are physical locations where people can train and work on our platform, and we plan on having these locations all over the globe, including places like Mongolia, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Kenya. We are also structuring satellite imagery for the Government of Singapore, essentially building their own Google Maps, giving them unlimited access to their data. The Government of Australia and the government of New Zealand both caught wind of what we were doing, so we will be doing the exact same thing for them.
Our second phase is a marketplace for algorithms. As processes become more complex whole stacks of artificial intelligence algorithms will become necessary and more prevalent. For now, we are completely concentrated on our micro-tasking marketplace. On July 10th we are launching on the EOS main net and introducing a bunch of new features, so stay tuned!
What is the best way to keep up with Effect.AI?
Telegram is the best way to stay in touch with us at Effect.AI. You can reach out to me on Telegram @ChrisEffectAI, I am very active within our community. I also post updates on our YouTube channel @effectai. Other than that, follow our progress on Twitter @effectaix!
Interview conducted by Chantel Costa and Adam Spodek — DAIA Press Team
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 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 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.
