A new blockchain project, OpenLedger, is launching its OPEN Mainnet with a direct challenge to this system. Its weapon? A revolutionary concept called proof of attribution aims to ensure every data contributor gets fair compensation and recognition.
The foundation of the modern AI industry is facing a crisis of trust. For years, massive AI models have been trained on vast amounts of data from the internet, books, articles, and images, typically without permission or payment to the creators. This practice has sparked high-profile lawsuits and created what some call a “trillion-dollar theft.” Read on to know more!
The core problem: Unpaid work
Today’s most powerful AI models learn from human creativity. However, the authors, researchers, and artists behind this training data are rarely, if ever, compensated. As one analysis notes, data collected via web crawling is often treated as “fair use,” leaving creators out of the multi-billion-dollar value they helped create.
This has led to a significant trust deficit and legal battles, such as the lawsuit filed by author Sarah Silverman against OpenAI and Meta, alleging their copyrighted books were used to train AI models without consent.
The solution: A new model for a fair AI economy
OpenLedger’s solution is built on two key ideas: “Payable AI” and proof of attribution.
- Payable AI is a new category where the use of data and AI models automatically triggers payments to contributors. It functions like a YouTube monetization system but for AI training data, creating a direct revenue share for creators.
- Proof of Attribution is the technological backbone. It’s a system that uses the blockchain to create an immutable, transparent record tracking which specific data contributed to a given AI model’s output. This makes it possible to see the lineage of an AI’s knowledge and automatically and fairly compensate the original data providers through smart contracts.
How it works: A marketplace built on fairness
Imagine a circular economy for AI development:
- Contributors Share Data: Researchers, writers, and artists upload specialized datasets to OpenLedger.
- Developers Build Models: AI developers use these verified datasets to train and fine-tune specialized models.
- Automated Payments Flow: Whenever a model is used, OpenLedger’s proof of attribution system and smart contracts automatically distribute payments in the platform’s native token to the data contributors. This creates a virtuous cycle: the more valuable a dataset is for improving AI, the more its contributors earn.
This turns the AI development process into a collaborative and fair marketplace, often compared to a combination of “Hugging Face and Web3.”
The road ahead: Challenges and questions
While the vision is compelling, the path forward has hurdles. The key question is whether proof of attribution can operate effectively at the massive scale of global AI training. Furthermore, widespread adoption depends on major AI labs choosing to integrate this model. Ultimately, the success of this new economy will be determined by whether the payments to contributors are meaningful and sustainable in the long run.
The launch of OpenLedger’s mainnet signals a potential turning point. By using proof of attribution to address the AI industry’s original sin of uncompensated data, it proposes a future where AI grows not by taking from creators, but by building alongside them.
