I assume you have all come across freelance AI Trainer jobs by companies like Mercor, Scale or Outlier, which are flooding the job boards with low-paid jobs to improve the knowledge of AI models. The reason for this is simple: the truth behind artificial intelligence is that tens of thousands (or maybe even hundreds of thousands) of people spend their entire day reading AI conversations and help fixing and improving responses.

I do not want to judge the business model itself, the demand is clearly there on both sides: AI companies are desperate to improve their models, and many people are searching for any job opportunities. But what concerns me is the closed nature of the underlying data powering AI models. People are no longer asking and answering questions on public platforms on the web. Instead, conversations are increasingly happening through AI models, which remain the private property of the AI provider.

Traffic is concentrated on a few platforms

Even in the pre-AI era, traffic had been concentrating more and more on a few social media platforms. The dominance of these platforms is now so pervasive that, for the average person, the internet is nearly synonymous with them. Information published on these platforms is only pseudo-public, in the sense that you can only see what the platforms choose to show you.

In the AI era, it is even worse: you do not see the actual sources of information. Instead, you are expected to simply trust the AI model's generated answers. The real sources are no longer public, and it is becoming harder and harder to find answers in what remains of the internet. It is astonishing how many people have already fully adapted to this AI-guided way of life.

Knowledge must be public - AI models can be private

I do not want to deny the benefits of AI. It has made me more efficient and given me more time for more interesting topics. It is also fascinating how much knowledge can be compressed into an algorithmic model. The discussion about AGI is obviously far-fetched, but it is clearly threatening a lot of jobs. We won’t need as many people creating nonsensical PowerPoints that nobody reads. The AI slop is perfectly suited for that. Jokes aside, serious jobs are also at risk.

My concern about AI is that the race about the best AI model is actually a race of who is able to own the largest proprietary knowledge base. The Big Tech Companies have a clear advantage here because they already control most of the traffic online. To prevent a winner-takes-all scenario, where a single dominant AI model monopolizes the field, we should build a truly public knowledge base that any AI company can access.

Share your knowledge openly and freely

To make your knowledge truly accessible to the world, avoid directly posting on platforms whose Terms of Service restrict the use of information for their own benefit. The best way is to create your own personal page, share your knowledge there, and distribute it via Reddit, Lemmy, X, Bluesky, Mastodon, or whatever channel you prefer to reach your audience. Today, it is easier than ever to run a modern blog with minimal technical knowledge using Hugo, Jekyll, or similar tools. Sharing knowledge is far more rewarding when you know it is accessible to everyone.