Creating the Data Economy

Our society has become increasingly reliant on data, but its value is not accessible to all. Of the 16 billion terabytes of data created globally in 2016, only 1% was analyzed. Among other discrepancies, the growing data monopolies concentrate power over certain technologies such as artificial intelligence precluding their positive impact on society.

Trent McConaghy, AI researcher and the founder of the decentralized data exchange, Ocean Protocol, is aiming to solve this by enabling individuals and organizations to share, monetize, and access data.

In this conversation, Trent and Azeem Azhar discuss:

• The real-world impact of deep learning and error reduction, and why we have not yet fully leveraged data’s learning potential.


• Early use cases of successful data exchange in mining and autonomous driving.


• Drawing distinctions between human rights and tradable property, should ownership of personal data be protected as a human right?

Further Reading:

• “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data” (2009)


• “The Web3 Data Economy Towards a Transparent, Permissionless Ecosystem to Spread the Benefits of AI” (Nov. 22, 2018)


• “Major Automakers, Startups, Technology Companies and Others Launch Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI)” (May 4, 2018)


• “Is It Your Data” (Jan. 22, 2019)


• “Should we treat data as labor? Let’s open up the discussion” (Feb. 21, 2018)


• “We need to own our data as a human right — and be compensated for it” (Jan. 21, 2019)


• “This AI Company Is The Future Of Gold Exploration” (February, 2019)


• Open Data Impact Map

Trent McConaghy @trentmc0

Azeem Azhar @azeem

www.exponentialview.co