The Intelligence Economy Is Coming

Imagine a world where with a swipe of your finger your data could be used to help train an LLM. A world where you were compensated in real time for your data contributions. A world where you are in control over who has access and can benefit from your digital history and behaviors, whether you are sharing insights with the person next to you on an airplane or another business interested in your research. This reality is not only possible but inevitable in the new Intelligence Economy.

What is the Intelligence Economy? The Intelligence Economy is when data takes its place in the global economy as one of, if not the most important digital asset. It is the period when both individuals and businesses understand that their data has value, and they begin to take control of their asset to share, protect, or even monetize its use. When society begins to treat data as an asset, it is no longer the “black box” that only a few statisticians can understand or interpret. Rather, it evolves to be humanity’s avenue for greater autonomy, heritage, and progress.

The concept of “data as the new oil” has been around for over a decade and has largely been misunderstood. Coined in 2006 by Clive Humby, it actually intended that data needs to be “refined” for it to have value. The “data is the new oil” catchphrase has since been picked up by Big Tech executives implying that data is a commodity that can be monetized. To date, data monetization has existed mostly for private corporations, where in 2023 $3.4B was transacted annually, predominantly within the silos of AWS, IBM, Oracle, and GCP.

Data monetization is not the Intelligence Economy (although it’s a part of it). Today, technological advancements are converging simultaneously to make the Intelligence Economy a reality: AI, Blockchain, Chips, and Data (The ABCDs). Mark Yusko, Managing Partner of Morgan Creek Capital, who coined the acronym “ABCD,” goes so far as to say that “the best investment opportunities over the next decade will be where the ABCDs intersect.” The Intelligence Economy is the most powerful opportunity where all four of the ABCDs combine to usher in a new data revolution.

The convergence of the ABCDs are what makes the Intelligence Economy possible:

• Without AI: There would be no buyer.
• Without Blockchain: There would be no trust or integrity.
• Without Chips: There would be no scale.
• Without Data: There would be no asset.

How does the Intelligence Economy get started?

It will start with Enterprise. It's logical that businesses are the first movers to assess data value given the extremely tangible profit and IP protection motivations.

Did you know that:

• 5% of all data and 25% of high-quality sources in AI training sets (C4, RefinedWeb, Dolma) are now restricted.

Which is the result of actions by publishers and other data holders who have:

• Set up paywalls or changed terms of service to limit AI data use.
• Blocked automated web crawlers from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
• Begun charging for data access (e.g., Reddit, Inc., StackOverflow).
• Taken legal action for unauthorized use (e.g., The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft).

(Source: Stefaan Verhulst, PHD)

The Intelligence Economy will only evolve as tools, marketplaces, and protections fall into place that will encourage users of all types to leverage their data assets to the fullest desired extent.

Michael Clark, author of the upcoming book The Data Revolution - The Rise of an Asset, shares a framework for how the Data Revolution will shape all aspects of our lives. “AI has forced us to reconsider our approaches; realizing that past thinking and habits are no longer enough to create a future that is beyond better. Data ownership is now within reach and both individuals and businesses have started to assess the intrinsic and extrinsic value of their data.”

Since the inception of public cloud, businesses have stored most of their data adhering to a “just-in-case” model. When data volumes were relatively small, public cloud made it easy and cheap to store it all. However, those costs are mounting because of the sheer amount of data being stored and rising fees.

Much like someone storing their personal items in a physical storage unit, eventually the conversation turns to value. Do I need this? Is it important to me or someone else? What tends to happen next is that owners will purge everything that doesn’t hold value (intrinsic or extrinsic). Owners will continue to hold sentimental items in vaults –– rarely accessed but secured –– and migrate valuable assets to marketplaces to be monetized. Data is going through this transformation as we speak.

What might this mean for the future?

With the amount of high-quality data already being pulled off the internet, the market demand for data will begin to rapidly accumulate to accommodate the growing needs of AI. As both buyers and sellers become more vocal, the market will materialize in the areas that can generate a clear signal on the data’s quality and uniqueness. The Web3 space will enable the Intelligence Economy with its unique data quality-preserving capabilities: from data attribution, authentication, and provenance, to ownership, interoperability, and integrity. As these solutions begin to harmonize, groundbreaking use cases will emerge.

Academic research institutions will no longer be focused on "publish or perish," but on selling university-branded data through AI marketplaces and decentralized data exchanges. This will create a royalty stream of cash flows for both the professor/PhD and the University. Publishing may still have a role, but perhaps more as marketing materials to explain what the data is and why it's relevant.

Web2 social media platforms will rapidly pivot their business models to protect user data and intellectual property, empowering users to monetize their information directly on their platform. While the major platforms we know today will never fully decentralize, they will at least provide the illusion of control and monetization for their users to remain competitive with rising players that have these benefits baked in. Alternative Web3 native browsers and apps will emerge that make data protection, control, and monetization the leading features of their product.

Enterprise will rush to contribute and promote their data on data marketplaces, platforms that match buyers and sellers of data for the purpose of unlocking business value (e.g., Nukl.ai and SingularityNet). As companies become more comfortable with the controls, security, and transparency of their data when participating in an open market, enterprises will begin to see data storage as one of their leading profit generators instead of the cost center it functions as now. While data marketplaces exist today, many are provided by the major tech powerhouses of AWS, Google, IBM, and Snowflake –– another example of Big Tech centralizing the power of data. These markets will move on-chain as they become less siloed, more permissionless, more programmable, and more global.

Wall St.: Much like your home mortgage, frequently transacted data will be securitized by Wall St. Datasets will have a face value and predictable cash flows, which will launch an array of financial products not seen since Salomon Brothers created the mortgage-backed security in 1977.

The role of Filecoin

To ensure confidence in this level of transaction and securitization, the data must have the utmost integrity and quality assurances to support both buying and selling in a liquid marketplace. Here’s what data integrity will look like in the Intelligence Economy.

• Ownership: A way to embed clear creator ownership into data, generating digital intellectual property rights visible to consumers. Example: A Digital Identity (DiD) solution like Adobe’s Content Attribution.
• Provenance: An on-chain proof of data origin and ownership lineage throughout the life of the dataset. Example: ClimateGPT, an EQTY Labs solution built with Filecoin & Hedera.
• Immutability: Confidence that the data cannot be changed. Solution: InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)
• Verifiability: Continuous proof that the data is still on-chain and has not been altered. Solution: Filecoin
• Decentralization: No single point of failure or subjugation to Big Tech’s control. Solution: Filecoin

Filecoin and IPFS, which Filecoin is built on top of, are essential to ensuring data integrity and quality assurance of the intelligence economy. Without decentralized data infrastructure, the data economy will never reach its full potential –– leaving Big Tech to clean up all the potential profits. Only open and decentralized ecosystems and protocols can facilitate the trustless and permissionless nature that a global data economy demands.

Closing words

The greatest wealth is created by being an early investor in innovation. Making that investment requires believing in something before the majority of people understand it. You will be mocked, ridiculed & criticized for your non-consensus action. It is absolutely worth it! –Mark Yusko, Managing Director of Morgan Creek Capital

The Intelligence Economy will be one of the largest economic, technological, and social transformations over the next 30 years. According to Market.us, the global blockchain AI market size is expected to be worth around $2,787M by 2033, up from $349M in 2023 –– and this is all before mass adoption truly occurs. The technology is there, the components are already in production, and integrations are occurring rapidly.

Be curious; be excited; be first.

Welcome to the Data Revolution!