Taming the Tech Titans: Data for All
The next step in the digital revolution will give each of us the ‘data power’ that made Amazon, Google and Apple the most successful organisations in the world
Data is the new oil, we are told. Still, the power that comes from this new digital wealth is concentrated in very few hands. The rest of us risk becoming ‘attention fodder’ for the latest generation of Tech Titans — at the mercy of our addiction to the portable devices we love.
The side effects include destroying democracy, accepting routine intrusion of privacy as ‘the new normal’, and manipulation on a cosmic scale. Are we satisfied that someone we don’t know, and aren’t even aware of, is pulling our strings?
There will never be a shortage of people — and companies, and countries — willing to distract us and exploit our lack of conscious attention for their own purposes. It’s the classic ploy of the confidence trickster, whether in personal relationships or in government.
But is this inevitable?
Spreading the Power
Fortunately, we’re only at the start of the data story. History tells us that any new technology — any new source of power — starts in the hands of a few. Typically, it needs heavy investment to develop, and it is those with power and money that provide it.
But as we’ve seen with personal computing, microprocessors, and mobile phones, sooner or later ways are found to make this new power portable, personal and affordable. Putting it the hands of the many. In the process creating entirely new industries, new jobs, and new sources of individual and corporate wealth.
This is a model — an immutable ‘Law of Innovation’ — that has played out, reliably and repeatedly, with every new technology since fire. We’re now poised to see it happen with data.
The Digital Story So Far
Today, any child (or adult) can now play with their own computer in their bedroom, with a $10 credit card sized Raspberry Pi. Build their own Alexa. Connect to supercomputers on the other side of the world. Create their own ‘Internet of Things’. More than half the world now have more computing power in their pocket than NASA used to put men on the moon.
Once, only the great and the good could communicate beyond their immediate circle. Now, anyone can do it, worldwide if they wish.
Each of these developments has, without the slightest exaggeration, changed the world. Each started in the hands of one or more ‘Titans’, and is now accessible to us all.
And now… Data
If we’ve learnt anything in the past 10 years, it is the power of data. The real power of computing, and communications, and networks comes when all these things are connected to data. To the bits and bytes that represent us. That’s the one piece that’s been missing — what the ‘digital revolution’ has been building towards.
We can complain that this new Data Power is, for now, concentrated in the hands of a few megacorporations. But history tells us this is simply the first step — a signal of the arrival of a new human power. The next stage of development will package this power in a way that makes it personal, portable and affordable for us all.
Innovation at Hyperspeed
Innovation is an entirely natural process, following an entirely predictable path. But making it digital speeds up the process dramatically. What used to take a generation can now be done in months.
Oil and the internal combustion engine took the power unleashed by the Industrial Revolution, and made it accessible to us all, dominating the economy of the twentieth century. But it took over a century to go from coal-powered steam engines the size of a house, to the cars we now drive.
As we’ve seen, the regular drumbeat of digital development, which has stolen oil’s economic crown, now gives us a major new development that changes the world, about every decade.
A Personal Data Engine
Today’s corporate data servers are the stationary beam engines of the data era: massive, rooted to the spot, and — of course — serving the needs of the corporations that financed them.
But history makes clear we will not stop there. We’re just waiting for the other foot to fall.
If data is the new oil, we can already see what the ‘internal combustion engine’ of the data era looks like. A Personal Microserver where you can hold and own your own data, and process it using the latest AI technology. Use it yourself, or trade and combine it with others, on your terms. A source of personal power, wealth, and value.
This new, personal data engine promises to release what has been locked inside the belly of the beast, in the corporate servers of Amazon, Google, and others. For use by individuals, and by a new generation of data-based enterprises, focused on delivering what we decide we need. Not just dancing to the tune of advertisers wanting to sell us yet more stuff.
The ‘data engine’ already exists and is being used by early adopters. History tells us that what comes next is the digital equivalent of the Model T Ford, and the generations of new vehicles that evolved from it. Something that will package this new, personal data technology and make it easy to use and available to all. The first version likely won’t be perfect (anyone remember the first version of Windows?), but it will do the job. It will unlock a whole range of new applications.
My Data, My Applications
From looking after our health in a way that is private and personally tailored, to managing our money, in a way that puts us in control. With easy access to the new kinds of money now emerging. Giving us detailed, useful information about our daily life, without granting Facebook, foreign governments, or anyone else, unlimited licence to pry.
Providing AI-powered assistants that are truly personal to us. Delivering entertainment, information and news we can rely on, tailored to our needs, rather than the needs of advertisers to grab our attention. (It shouldn’t need economists to tell us that basing an entire economy on advertising is a highly unbalanced situation — creating a bubble that, sooner or later, will burst.)
Avoiding toxic ‘side effects’. Guarding our privacy, identity and respect, expertly, against the many invasions we can expect in a connected world.
Giving us time and space to compose our ‘face’. Letting us choose who we want to present it to, and when. Allowing us to forget past ‘faces’, and expunge outbursts we may now regret from the elephant memory of the Internet.
And yes, even carrying out ‘work’ on our behalf — some of which we may be paid for.
Available in any colour you like, as long as it’s data.
Geoff Vincent is a writer, consultant and practitioner of innovation. He is a member of the Big HAT Community and a HATTER, and he led the development of the first personal pocketphone. www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-vincent.
This article is the third in a series on Taming the Tech Titans. Read the others here:
How previous ‘Tech Titans’ were tamed, and what we can learn from this as we face a new set of ‘digital overlords’.
How a small group of enthusiasts changed the direction of the computer industry, and made computing power accessible to all.
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