With Decentralized AI and Tokenized Ownership, We Can Fight ‘The Six’

Initially, it was reported that the profits and sales for Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Amazon during the third quarter exceeded or met projections. However, with the exception of Amazon’s earnings release on Friday, the shares of these Big Tech companies dropped after announcing their earnings, pulling down with them Nvidia, who will report their quarterly results a month later.

“Investors were alarmed by the high capital expenditure figures related to AI computing power and model development, with Alphabet disclosing a $13 billion investment in the last quarter alone and expecting similar spending this time around. Meta, on the other hand, has increased its full-year budget to between $38-40 billion. These tech giants are engaged in a spending battle as they strive to outpace each other in AI dominance. However, if costs spiral out of control, all parties risk reduced profit margins.

As an analyst, I want to make it clear that collectively, these six companies are generating an annual revenue of $1.8 trillion, a figure that would place them in the top 10 among global countries if viewed as a representation of national GDP, just behind Brazil’s total output from its population of 220 million people. Moreover, their combined market capitalization stands at a staggering $15 trillion, accounting for approximately one-third of the entire S&P 500 index. Remarkably, despite – or maybe because of – this impressive performance, these companies are fiercely competing for global supremacy, emulating the competitive spirit that traditionally drives technological advancement in a typical capitalist economy with varied goods and services.

So, don’t worry about The Six. Worry about us. Because our problem amid the dizzying advance of AI is definitely not one of a shortfall in technological progress. It’s that this particular form of technological progress comes with risks to human autonomy and safety. And to mitigate them, the question of who controls AI’s development and whether their incentives are aligned with the broadest base of humanity is fundamental.

These six companies – Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple – have developed their large language models (LLMs) and other AI technologies within closed, opaque systems. By collecting vast amounts of data we unknowingly shared online, they’ve created intricate, invisible codebases. These tech giants control various aspects of the AI ecosystem: storage (Amazon Web Services), computation hardware (Nvidia), AI models (Microsoft with Open AI), data (Alphabet and Meta), and user devices (Apple). Though they may compete, their dominance across multiple layers forms a vertically integrated oligopoly. In essence, they function as an oligarchy, with their technology having significant influence over our lives. The secrecy surrounding how they wield this power is reminiscent of many oligarchical dictatorships.

As we moved into the later stages of the Web2 era, it became increasingly clear that Bruce Schneier’s insightful statement resonated: internet platforms don’t view us as customers, but rather as their product. This realization has led us to take a closer look at how these companies have been motivated for years to manipulate human behavior in potentially harmful ways to boost shareholder profits. Today, it’s no longer taboo to discuss the psychological damage inflicted by the algorithms of platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and others, which were intentionally engineered to trigger dopamine releases and encourage compulsive usage.

In March 2024, when Frank McCourt and I released our book, “Our Biggest Fight”, we were inundated by parents sharing heart-wrenching tales about the negative impact of social media on their children’s lives. Interestingly, a Harris Poll orchestrated by NYU Professor Johathan Haidt revealed that young people share this concern: approximately half of Gen Z expressed a wish that TikTok and Twitter had never been created, despite 83% of the same generation admitting they spend over four hours daily on social media.

Given our understanding of the potential dangers, it’s hard to fathom why we would continue to allow the same concentration of power in the form of an oligopoly in the era of artificial intelligence. AI has the potential to amplify the dominance exhibited by the Web2 oligarchy.

I strongly feel that developing decentralized, community-owned artificial intelligence using Web3 and blockchain is crucial, as it’s the best solution for addressing the issue of conflicting motivations. This approach ensures alignment of interests.

One approach to rephrasing this passage in a more natural and easy-to-understand manner is as follows:

The predicament is clear: we’re running out of time, and the odds seem stacked against us. As previously mentioned, collectively known as The Six, these entities possess an unparalleled $15 trillion war chest. In the early 2000s, companies like Facebook and Google discovered that their high stock values served as a powerful tool to acquire startups that either strengthened or posed a threat to their supremacy. Now, The Six have even more resources to purchase and assimilate groundbreaking advancements in AI, whether they’re independent AI agents or more efficient computing systems. Their financial might means that the most promising innovations, those offering the best chance for a less centralized AI market, could be swallowed up by their centralized system. Keep in mind, they’re not only competing with each other but are motivated to do whatever it takes to emerge victorious.

To challenge their centralized strategies, we need to revolutionize the current system. Traditional venture capital won’t offer sufficient resources for decentralized competitors to compete with the giants. The solution lies in replacing equity financing with fully user-owned, token-based systems. In the future, as your home devices perform computations and share your privacy-protected data into open-source models that work for you, you will be rewarded with tokens for this contribution. These tokens can then be used to pay for all the innovative services provided by your personal AI agent. This is a novel, distributed financing and payment system tailored for a future, decentralized AI economy. It’s the only viable path forward.

For the crypto and blockchain sector to thrive, it needs a fresh perspective. If startup creators view DeAI solely as a means for quick profits through token inflation, or if the heads of Layer 1 platforms entering this field prioritize short-term applications that boost their cryptocurrency’s value rather than addressing broader economic issues, this endeavor will not succeed. To prevail in this battle, this industry needs to foster more compatibility and unity. It requires a more cooperative approach.

This is not to say we should squash the competitive instincts that are vital to innovation. But it is to acknowledge a need for better cross-industry organization. Through collaborative bodies such as the new Decentralized AI Society, different stakeholders can work with each other to advance common interests around standards, reference architectures, taxonomies, policy objectives and open-source, cross-chain protocols that everyone can use regardless of the token they hold. We’re not building to pump our bags or take our token “to the moon.” We’re building to create a new decentralized AI economy for the benefit of all humanity.

Come join the fight.

Keep in mind that the opinions shared within this article belong solely to the writer; they may not align with the perspectives of CoinDesk, Inc., its proprietors, or their associates.