Hive is a decentralized text database that allows anyone with some of the staked coins to write to it.
It also allows anyone access to the data who wants it.
This is becoming an important component. In the world of artificial intelligence, this truly is the "new oil".
One of the major problems is that corporations are starting to assume total control. The major social media networks are data warehouses, generating massive amounts each day. This is only favoring them to even a greater degree.
Elon Musk spent a lot of money for X. Regardless of what is being done with the social media platform, it is a treasure trove of data. This is something they are well aware of.
In this article we discuss how X changed its terms of service to reflect this new reality and how it shows the importance of decentralized databases like Hive.
X Terms of Service: AI Training
Elon is setting up an artificial intelligence epicenter. X is just one piece of the puzzle.
Here is one section added to the terms of service.
We can clearly see this allows X to use the data provided by the users for the training of its AI system. This likely will come as no surprise to anyone.
But if we did a big deeper, we find there is more to the story. Musk also set up xAI. This is from the website.
This certainly leaves the door open to Musk taking the data and using it to train the other systems. Again, this might not be a surprise to many but it now clear what the intention is.
Of course, this is no different than what anyone else in the technology sector is doing. Mark Zuckerberg has the Facebook family of applications that are all garnering data. He is feeding through through his algorithms.
No Data Scraping
Not long ago, both Twitter and Reddit limited their APIs. This is something we can presume is going to keep expanding.
These companies want to make sure that they retain the data. If it is the new oil, one is not about to give it away.
Meta, Google. X, and TikTok are all thinking the same thing. For other companies to train their systems, they will have to pay for the data. This is not user data but the property of these technology companies.
X even put it in their terms of service.
This means that scraping of data by any outside company is no prohibited.
In short, they are seeking to lock down the data.
Hive To The Rescue
This might seem like it is over-the-top but this is exactly where Hive can offer a tremendous benefit.
At its core, Hive is a decentralized text database. This means, as stated, anyone can write to it. Data scraping is not a problem since anyone is free to access it. The only problem might be the APIs yet this is open to any company. They simply have to set up their own API.
Text data is how NLP models learn. Since we write in a language that is natural to us, the software is set up to learn that. This is what makes things like ChatGPT so powerful. While many will claim it is nothing more than search, it is working on providing answers in human language.
All of this requires data.
Microsoft, the one behind Open AI, has access to a ton of data also. It isn't a mistake that we keep reverting back to the same household names from the tech industry. On the Chinese side, Alibaba and Tencent are the ones there.
Many fear technology, especially AI, and have a dystopian view. Obviously, with mega-tech in control, there are some things to be concerned about.
When we bore down to the basics, it starts with data. These companies control a lot of it. The reality is that it just keeps growing.
What are smaller operators to do? There is no place for them to get the data. This leaves the market to the major corporations who have repeatedly shown not to have everyone's best interest.
Hive is providing an alternative. While the dataset is nowhere near that of the major social media platforms or search engines, we can keep working on providing an alternative. Everything that appears on Hive will eventually end up in a machine learning engine at some point.
Of course, much of this can start with the idea of stop feeding the beast. This is difficult since traditional social media platforms have so much control.
However, this is no different than money. The push for cryptocurrency is one of taking $1 and moving it to the new system. Therefore, each unit not in a bank but in a crypto wallet is minor shift. We see the same thing with transactions. Each time a payment is made using cryptocurrency, that is one less payment done in fiat currency.
The terms of service update by X shows where this is all headed. In a world dominated by major corporations, Hive offers an oasis.
It is up to us to utilize what is at hand.
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