By Dr. Vivek Gupta, Founder & CEO · February 2020
A walk into the digital age, with continuous generation and sharing of data, is exposing us to our naked core and creating multiple partial digital twins. As the utility gains of data sharing are too large to ignore, we are willing to walk naked and share our data.
"Our 'willingness to walk naked' is driven by our need to be 'Digitally Pampered.'"
"Digitally Pampered" is the new mantra for Gen X or anyone hooked to the internet and mobile. We want today's movies to adapt to us, our searches for information to adapt, our cooking gadgets to adapt. This incessant desire for "algorithmic servitude" is leading us to share significant data with the algorithms — almost akin to "walking naked." The lure of being digitally pampered by personalized robotic and algorithmic servants is too strong to avoid.
"We consciously want to trade our data for economic, convenience or wellness gains."
The algorithms are perfect "servants." Any time they cannot serve the master, they are punished ("reinforcement learning") and need to become better. They are continually data-hungry and have an ever-increasing desire to create a personalized envelope around you. To serve you better, they need the seamless exchange of personalized data across your multiple activities. The robotic servants cannot operate in a disjointed universe — it cannot happen without the algorithms knowing our preferences across multiple needs.
"Algorithmic servants need continuously more data to predict our mind and needs."
In this emerging reality, how can a person maintain privacy while at the same time getting personalized service? This will be the most defining question for personalized AI. How will static regulatory frameworks adapt to dynamically negotiated privacy, where "consent to information sharing" will itself be determined by personalized AI agents?
"We will need 'AI agent'-based privacy solutions which can dynamically negotiate privacy."
This dynamic AI agent will be an algorithm-based service that negotiates information-sharing for localized, personalized service. We need a solution that is privately funded with a subscription service and is not controlled by "ad dollars." Given the public-good nature of it, a more universal solution is also desirable — or may emerge funded by public dollars, somewhat akin to how we pay for law enforcement today. Our views on these issues will be shaped by the lure of personalized service on one end versus negative incidents and experiences of sharing data — i.e. "walking naked."
A 2020 companion to our single source of truthful intelligence thesis — on the privacy side of an AI-mediated world. Originally published on Medium →