AI for Good is starting to be demonstrated, in addressing impact problems like the UN Sustainable Development Goals. But how can we scale it? This talk describes how an AI Commons manifested as a blockchain public utility network -- Ocean Protocol -- can be a key part of the solution. This talk was a keynote at DutchChain Odyssey conference, Den Bosch, Feb 4, 2019.

1. Roadmap
Alpha Aug ‘18, Mainnet Mar ‘19
Towards an
AI Commons
@oceanprotocol
Trent McConaghy

3. Q: can AI help?

4. ✓ Predicting
deforestation
✓ Tracking
livestock to
reduce conflict
✓ Micro insurance
for crops
AI + Satellite projects

5. ✓ Tailored
smart city
✓ Give a voice
to the
voiceless
AI + Smart Communities
✓ Epidemic
modelling

6. 2017: AI FOR GOOD SUMMIT

7. Q: can AI help?
A: Yes! #AIforGood

8. Q: can AI help?
A: Yes! #AIforGood
But…

9. Problem
owners Problem
solvers
GAP

10. Problem
owners Problem
solvers
GAP

11. Scaling
#AIforGood

12. Problem
owners Problem
solvers
Data
owners
Storage &
compute
GAP

13. Connective tissue: public utility network
Problem
owners
Problem
solvers
Data
owners
Storage &
compute

14. Blockchains are public utility
networks

15. Blockchain public utility network for the AI Commons
Problem
owners
Problem
solvers
Data
owners
Storage &
compute

16. Service provider frontends
For data commons,
Storage & compute markets
Public utility network incentivizing data:
• Block rewards for data
• Privacy-preserving AI modeling
Problem
owners
Problem
solvers
Data
owners
Notebooks,
data, storage,
compute
AI Commons
Frontend
Specify Problems
Storage &
compute
Data science tools
Data,
storage,
compute
Network
rewards
Jupyter
notebooks

17. Catalyze the commons and profit-making, via a
substrate for a thousand marketplaces to bloom.
Data
marketplace
DM DM DM
DM DM DM DM
DM DM DM DM
DM DM DM DM
DM
DM
DM
DM
Have AI
(Want data)
Have data Have AI
(Want data)
Have AI
(Want data)
Have data
Have data Have AI
(Want data)
Have data Have data Have AI
(Want data)

18. Block rewards to incentivize data supply
Add to data commons, make $

19. Public utility network
Preserve privacy:
bring AI compute to the data
f(x)
private
data
modeling
algorithm
privately
train model
private
model
model
predictions
Data stays
behind firewall

20. Framings

21. “AI Compute Pipeline”
f(x)
data
provider
algorithm
compute
provider
storage
provider
analytics
further
processing
curation

22. “Inter-Service Network”
Algorithm Tribe
Storage Tribe
analytics
further
processing
curation
Compute Tribe
Data Tribe
curation
curation
curation

23. “Network of Networks, for AI Stack”
Crypto perspective:
Ocean is L2 on L1 AI perspective:
Ocean is L1

24. “SABRE for data”
SABRE is metadata/substrate for airline tickets. Ocean, for data itself.
Consume data:
Data scientists,
Biz analysts
Supply data:
Biz’s, NGOs,
Governments
Data
market
DM AC DM
AI
common
s
DM DM AC
Public utility
network
Consume tickets:
Consumer
travelers, biz ppl
Supply tickets:
Airlines
Expedia Kayak 3rd party
reseller
Easyjet
website
Travel
agent
Hip
munk
BA
website
Travel
agent
SABRE

25. User
Experience

26. Keep Data Science Tooling, Add Crypto
*

27. Every dataset is an asset.
Every Jupyter notebook is an asset (!)

28. New powers for data scientists
•Way more data. Data commons. Enterprise data
without data escapes via on-premise compute.
•Provenance in data & AI training. Goodbye data
honeypots.
•More $. For generating data. For cleaning, labeling,
feature engineering data. For algs. For curation.

29. Applications

30. Use case: water quality
Satellite data in the commons to verify impact of forest restoration on water

31. Better predict Parkinson’s by connecting data across hospitals
& borders; promoting & promoting research collaboration
(ConnectedLife)

32. Grow Asia (WEF Spinoff):
Help small farmers allocate their fertilizer better, to increase yields

33. Govt of Singapore Data Authorities (IMDA):
Give policymakers optionality to get benefits of AI,
while addressing privacy

34. AI Commons:
40+ UN Agencies,
AI XPRIZE Using Ocean
in #AIforGood

35. User
Experience II

40. Conclusion

41. Q: how to scale #AIforGood?
A: Blockchain public utility
network for the AI commons
Trent McConaghy
@trentmc0